The BananaBird Chronicles
by peaches2217
Summary: An outgoing Japanese idol boy and a reserved British choir boy. They have their differences, but they're an otherwise average teenage couple (minus the whole android thing), and they're head-over-heals for one another. And between life's fun chaos, there's never a dull moment. (Part of The Kyokotta Household series.) (Mostly hosted on Ao3; updates here will be slower.)
1. Good Morning!

The most ungodly shriek Len had ever heard filled his ears. Not at all out-of-place or unfamiliar: rather, it was the shrill scream of his alarm, signaling the arrival of 7 AM and the necessity of getting out of bed. Which just made the noise all the more ungodly.

He made the best attempt at stretching he could make while still on his side and groaned. Wednesday. It was Wednesday. Just two more days until he could sleep in to his heart's content. Too tired to even fantasize about the far-off Saturday, he blankly stared at the window. The early morning sun streamed through the blinds, most of the rays going directly over him; his eyes wearily followed them as he rolled onto his back, then his other side.

To his right, he was met with a face full of flaxen hair, tangled and glowing in the sunshine it had captured.

Suddenly, Len felt a little less tired.

But lazy as ever, he allowed his gaze to linger, following the wavy locks, admiring the rising and falling of the shoulders they fell just above, taking in the full beauty of the figure sleeping beside him (who had hogged the blanket at some point and was now cozily wrapped within it).

Wow.

Len was what he liked to call "Really Freaking Lucky". This was the sight he got to wake up to every morning. And every morning, it left him speechless, a little bit breathless. Messy hair, oversized and wrinkled nightclothes, oftentimes a small puddle of drool on the pillow… Alright, a sleeping beauty Oliver was not. But he looked so damn _peaceful _that Len couldn't bring himself to care. And he almost couldn't bring himself to wake his lovely _koibito _from his slumber.

Almost.

"Ollie." Closing the distance that had come between them in their sleep, Len pulled himself against the other's back, burying his nose into that fluffy mess of hair. Gingerbread and vanilla filled his nostrils and washed over him and tempted him with just a few more minutes of rest. "Ollie-kun. C'mon. Time to get up."

Oliver barely even stirred, just groaned and muttered something in English that Len could only assume was a protest.

"No, you don't have a say in it."

"_Guwhuuuuuuuh_."

"Don't '_Guwhuuuuuuh _' at me."

So Oliver complied; he shut his mouth and _silently _took Len's hands, twining their fingers together and bringing them to his chest, and twisted nearly onto his stomach, trapping Len into an embrace against his back.

And then gave one final "_Guh._" for good measure.

Sometimes, Len felt less like an equal partner and more like a disgruntled parent.

But Oliver was so warm, his clothes and skin so soft, his wintry shampoo so soothing on the senses. His breath was deep and even, suggesting that he'd fallen asleep once more. And his hold on Len's hands, even in that sleep, was unrelenting. Firm. Sleepy…

What little energy he'd amassed since waking up was no match for such a masterful manipulation. Len's eyes fluttered shut as he gave himself up completely.

Wednesday. Close enough to Saturday. Sleeping in a little bit wouldn't hurt.

* * *

_**Hello! I'm peaches2217. I'm mostly active through Ao3, but I figured it wouldn't hurt to publish my stories here to my old FF account as well. I've got a lot of stuff to transfer, so some of it might be a bit wonky. I'm gonna focus on getting it up and then making sure it's polished after that. Thank you for your patience, and welcome to The BananaBird Chronicles!**_


	2. The Recital

Oliver's move to Japan didn't take too much of a hit on his musical career. His voice was too soft, too sweet for the kinds of songs that made for a good show, so he never took part in concerts and didn't miss much in having to give those up. And he could easily publish his songs online from anywhere and no one would be any wiser.

Yet remaining at home while everyone went out to record, to tour, to perform… it was a bit lonely. At home everyone was quick to remind him that he was one of them, that he was a rightful member of their family, publicity or no, but when he was the only one who couldn't be on a stage in front of an audience, such sentiments felt rather hard to believe. Which was when Luka stepped in and informed Oliver that a local choir would be holding auditions soon.

Having been created with the sole purpose of singing, he easily secured his spot.

His family was almost more excited than he was. When the placement announcement came in, they celebrated with a home-cooked meal and a big cake; when he returned from a rehearsal with news that he'd have a solo, they all went out to eat and drink. And between the joy of singing with an ensemble and the support of his house, Oliver had never felt quite so alive.

Although, he realized now as he stared out at the audience, perhaps there was such a thing as _too much _support.

A formal choir performance. Rather stuffy, really. The singers in matching suits and dresses, an audience that quietly applauded between pieces. Yet sitting front and center was a family of eight, who hooted and hollered and _waved bloody glowsticks _as if this were one of their own performances.

In between sets, Oliver's eye found Len's, and he made a face - scrunched eyebrows, lips in a tight line, nostrils flared. A face he hoped screamed _For the love of God help them reign it in._ After all, if anyone knew how to save him from a bad situation, it would be his metaphorical knight on a white steed.

As he stepped from the stands to take his place center-stage for his solo, he painfully discovered that Len's interpretation of the face had been… substantially different.

"_Hell yeah!"_ he screamed over the polite clapping of the rest of the crowd, slapping his hands together so frantically Oliver feared he might break a wrist or two. "_That's my boyfriend! Whooo! You're gonna kill it, babe!"_

In spite of how shy and fidgety he normally was, Oliver's stage presence was impeccable. He could stand straight and tall and keep a perfectly straight face no matter what was thrown his way. He could not, however, control the rush of blood that flooded his face and turned his vision red and made the rest of his body feel cold as ice.

Once Len finally and mercifully fell silent, he scooted to the edge of his seat and held his blue glowstick to his chin and flashed a thumbs-up and a wink to Oliver.

The pianist, somehow oblivious to the chaos, tapped out the first few chords.

Oliver wanted nothing more than to run off the stage, run into the first row, give all eight of them a slap across their smiling faces and a nice telling off. And another smack to Len, with the additional promise to make him sleep on the floor for the next week. But… they didn't mean any harm. He knew that. Had they any idea they were humiliating him, they would stop without question. Yes. He could always speak with them after the show, calmly inform them that you _don't fucking scream at a choir performance,_ and then next time they would be on their best behavior.

...If, following tonight, there _was _a next time.

But for now, he didn't have time to worry about that. All he had time to do was smile and nod to his embarrassing yet beloved family and begin what might possibly be his final solo.

Yes, they'd all be getting an earful later. But for now, he had face to save.


	3. Two Drunken Dorks

Dizzy. Fuzzy. Len didn't register the _thump _until a few seconds after it happened, and it took a few seconds more to realize the sound had come from his own back making contact with the floor. Fluorescent lights, muted yet lurid and bright, filled his vision, making his head pound, but he couldn't stop staring. So pretty. So mesmerizing. So...

Wet. He'd… spilt something? His drink. Crap, he'd spilt his drink. That blissfully delicious bottle of Meiko's own personal mix, wasted, all over the floor, all over his clothes. He lifted a hand and tried to ask for another bottle. Whatever came out of his mouth was certainly a collection of words, but he wasn't really sure if they were the _right _words.

"Len. Leeeeen."

The cold, unfeeling blobs of light were blocked from his sight, replaced with the outline of fluffy flaxen hair, pale skin, a single golden orb. Len didn't need sobriety to recognize the figure.

"Oh-lee-baaaah." Feeling suddenly dry and warm, Len let his raised hand drop to Oliver's neck, brought his other hand to connect to it. "Ooooh-leeee."

Without much prodding, Oliver collapsed on top of him. Suddenly the lights were back, glaring and harsh; Len closed his eyes and focused instead on the boy in his arms. He smelled like the beer they'd spent all night getting drunk on, like caramel and gingerbread, fresh and warm and good enough to eat. Mmm. Len's stomach grumbled. Fueled by warmth and hunger, he tilted his head to the left and brushed Oliver's soft hair out of the way and licked his ear.

He tasted less like sugar and more like sweat. Not that Len minded, especially not with the reaction it drew from Oliver's lips.

"Mm." Len relaxed, and Oliver met him halfway, turning his face so that their lips could meet. Though they encountered trouble attempting even that much: lips met nose, cheek, ear, neck, everything but lips. Oliver finally gave up and contented himself to suckling at Len's jawline.

"_Mm._" Burying his fingers into that luxurious hair, Len sighed and let his him work his magic. "Oh-lee-_baaah_." He carefully peeked his eyes open once more, letting the lights blind him.

He was in heaven. Pure, absolute heaven.

Somewhere in the darkest recesses of Len's mind, he realized he was still thirsty. No one had ever brought him another bottle. But oh well. It could wait.

* * *

Rin stood in the doorway, watching her brother and her best guyfriend lazily making out on the kitchen floor, her face beset with a sympathetic grimace. Behind her, Meiko couldn't stop cackling like a mad woman. Which answered Rin's question before it even slipped her lips.

"Mei-chan."

"Yeah?"

"You didn't bother telling them that stuff's non-alcoholic, did you?"

"Must'a slipped my mind."


	4. A Tale of Groceries and Physical Contact

The grocery run alternated each week between a randomly selected pair from the nine Vocaloids living in the Kyokotta household. Easy, but a bit time consuming. Straws were normally drawn to determine who the responsibility would fall upon; this week, however, Oliver and Len had volunteered, selflessly offering to give up their afternoon to accomplish the noble task of securing another week's worth of nourishment for their beloved family.

Of course, if they _happened _to bring along some extra cash, and if they _happened _to stop and get smoothies and sip them while walking through the park together, and if they _happened _to avoid the grocery store until the end of the day when they were ready to go back home, well, that was just pure coincidence.

Len beamed to himself as he strolled alongside Oliver, the sun pleasantly warm on his skin. They'd done it. They'd survived their first date, and they'd only spent the first half of it stumbling over their words and blushing and avoiding eye contact. Then gradually they'd settled down and began acting as they always had and... it was pretty nice.

Somewhere deep down, he felt a little bad. It hadn't been much in the way of a date, really. It wasn't much different from any other time they'd hung out. But they'd gotten to spend several hours together, laughing and chatting and just having a wonderful time. So that counted in his book. He certainly hoped Oliver felt the same.

If he didn't, he wasn't letting on. To Len's left, his best-friend-turned-slightly-more-than-that looked equally radiant, a subtle smile curling on his lips, which — Len chuckled to himself when he realized it — were adorned with a sizable blue smudge, stained from his smoothie.

If… If he were to kiss those lips, would they still taste like blueberries?

Len's heart skipped in his chest at the thought. Technically speaking, he now actually held that right. Six days earlier (_whoa, _had it really almost been a week?), they had exchanged nervous and breathless confessions. It took another day after that, once the dizziness and shaking and red-faced amazement wore off, to decide that, yes, they wanted to try their hand at a relationship.

But they never did get around to their first kiss. The romanticism had come grinding to a halt when Len suggested they tell the household the news.

Issues had come to light, issues Oliver still harbored from when he lived in England with his original household. They'd known he was gay. They were... less than happy with that fact. He'd amassed the courage to come out to his current household a few months earlier, an act that was met with encouragements and celebration but nevertheless left him emotionally exhausted.

And realizing he'd have to do it all over again, Oliver had been mortified.

_"I want to go on a date first," _he'd finally decided after talking/crying all of his fears out. _"Let's get through one date, be able to say we're really and truly dating… then I think I'll be ready."_

Len, truthfully, felt it wasn't even necessary. Rin knew (he'd told her before Oliver brought his concerns up), which meant Miku probably knew, which meant there was a good chance everyone knew and was just waiting for them to make the official announcement. But nothing was truly unnecessary if it gave Oliver peace of mind, so Len devised the plan to disguise their first date as a grocery run and that did, in fact, make him feel better.

And honestly, it made Len feel better too. The family had a bad habit of hovering, especially where relationships were involved. When Rin and Miku had gone on their first date, Meiko and Kaito and Gumi had trailed them to make sure all went well (and Len may or may not have been there too at Miku's request as an emergency wing man, but that was something he would neither confirm nor deny). Knowing that they really were alone gave Len peace of mind as well.

Knowing they were alone, he could easily pull Oliver into a blueberry-flavored kiss and not care who saw.

A mental slap to the face stopped that thought in its tracks. _You don't kiss on the first date, _his inner voice admonished, and he turned his gaze back to the sidewalk and forced the notion from his head. Instead, he cleared his throat to get Oliver's attention.

"This has been fun!" he chimed. Oliver made a noise of agreement.

"Yeah. Let's do this again soon!" As soon as the words were out of his mouth, Len caught sight of Oliver whipping his head around; when Len turned his head, he was looking away, but it wasn't enough to hide the blush that spread all the way to his ears. "Or, you know, just, whenever you want. _If _you want. If not, that's okay, because today was a lot of fun anyway so I don't mind if you don't, um…"

To cease his ramblings, Len placed a hand on his far shoulder, squeezing him into a brief side-hug. "Definitely. In fact, I was kinda hoping we could make this a regular thing."

He could feel Oliver relax beneath his arm, the tension in his shoulders releasing, although he wasn't sure what to make of the tiny, almost inaudible gasp that slipped from him beforehand. Surprise, probably. "If you want to, then… Yeah. Definitely."

Len gave another squeeze before letting him go, an attempt at reassuring comfort. Oliver had come a long way regarding his self-esteem. When he first moved to Japan at the beginning of the year, he couldn't even look anyone in the eye or speak above a whisper, much less express anything resembling confidence. But he still had a long way to go. And Len had made it his personal goal to help him get there.

When he looked back over, however, Oliver's head was down, his eye focused on his feet. His eyebrow was scrunched up and his lips were puckered. Some combination of nervous and deep in thought, Len figured.

"Ollie-kun? You okay?"

Oliver didn't blink or jolt like he normally did when pulled out of a train of thought. He pressed his lips tighter together and kept on staring.

Len fought against the urge to gulp. That gasp when he'd hugged him. Had he gone too far? He hadn't even thought twice about it. In private, they were pretty comfortable with being close, and they'd gotten more comfortable with casual hugging in the past few months. That was in private, though. Was Oliver upset? Uncomfortable?

Before he could voice those concerns, Oliver spoke up, eye still trained on the ground.

"Len, I wanted to ask if… I-I know we're... we — I mean, we've only been dating for a few days so, you know, feel free to say no, I won't mind, I promise. But..."

_Can you back off a little? _Len half-expected to hear. He was already formulating his apology when Oliver spoke his actual request.

"Can I…" He swallowed. Then he spoke so softly that Len could hardly even hear what followed. "Can I hold your hand?"

The question took a moment to register, took another two moments to sink in. Then Len stumbled, stopped right where he stood.

Len, who moments earlier had been daydreaming about kissing Oliver, who even more recently was worried a side-hug was too public a display of affection, suddenly went hot, nearly frozen in shock as his entire body was engulfed in flames.

In his mind, a vivid fantasy played out like a movie: he swept Oliver's hand up in one smooth movement, bowing gracefully to place a kiss to the back of it, and said something suave and romantic like _"It's always here for you to hold, my darling"_.

And then the illusion vanished, popped like a flimsy soap bubble, leaving in its place a void that Len could only fill by stuttering like an idiot.

"Um, y-yeah," he choked, hardly able to hear himself over the pounding of his heart and the rush of blood in his ears. "Yeah. That sounds good. Yeah. I'd like that. Yeah. Okay. Let's hold hands. Yeah. S-sounds good. Okay."

It wasn't quite the response he was going for, but oh well.

"...Do you need a minute?" Oliver's voice sounded so concerned, so… _angelic, _and it was almost enough to snap Len out of his funk.

"I think I'm good," Len squeaked.

A few deep breaths later, and their palms touched, then their fingers twined together.

Oliver's hand was… hot. A little damp, even. He'd been sweating. From the heat of the sun? From anxiousness? Fear? Len looked to him at the same time Oliver decided his shoes were no longer the most interesting sight in the world. He _was _sweating. Not pouring perspiration, but his forehead glistened, and the bandages that covered the left side of his face looked darker than they had when they'd gone out from the house.

Above all, his eye — there were whole galaxies in that eye, Len was sure of it. Gold and shimmering in the glint of the setting sun and staring right through him, right into him. Maybe that was what Oliver was hiding. Surely if he uncovered both eyes, a mere mortal wouldn't be able to handle their combined gaze. God knew he probably wouldn't.

Had he always been so… handsome? Len had always thought he was cute, beautiful even. But this_— _this was_—_

"_Get out of the way, assholes!"_

A very undignified _"Gyah" _forced its way from Len as he was shoved to the edge of the sidewalk, a very aggravated old man stalking past the starstruck duo.

Once he'd passed, Len looked back at Oliver, who looked just as startled as him. He realized suddenly his hand was cold and sore. Oliver's grip was cutting off the circulation. And his was just as tight.

"Did that just happen?" Oliver asked. Len nodded, not sure if he was referring to the old man or the connection of their souls that preceded said incident. Whichever it was, Oliver snickered, and Len could feel his grip become more lose, more relaxed. "You've got this look on your face."

"Oh?" Len smiled right back at him, and he too relaxed almost instinctively. "What kind of look?"

"A really… dumb look."

A full-blown laugh overtook Len now; Oliver joined in kind, just as naturally as always.

"Gee, thanks!"

"I meant you looked dumbstruck! Not that you yourself look dumb!"

"Nope. I know how you really feel. I feel so betrayed."

"Len, come on! It was a slip-up!"

Whatever had happened when their hands connected passed over them, settled into the backs of their minds. The rest of the day went on as it had before. They bantered and laughed and wandered the aisles of the grocery store and got what was needed and made it back to the house just as the last light left the sky.

And never once did they let go of the other's hand. To Len, it felt like the most natural thing in the world. Like his hand was made to be held by Oliver's.

Whatever had happened, they didn't speak of it again. But when Oliver finally let go just before they entered the house, Len couldn't ignore the pang of sadness in his chest. Even as they put the groceries up in the refrigerator, he found himself wanting to set it all aside, reach out, take his hand for just a little bit longer.

Maybe he'd been starved for physical affection all this time. Maybe Oliver just had him under a spell.

Suddenly, a realization dawned on Len, one that made his knees weak the longer he dwelt on it: he'd been overwhelmed to the point of having a near out-of-body experience the first time they _held hands. _What would happen when they… _If _they…

"Len-kun, you okay?"

Len spoke before he was completely back in his own head. "Yeah, I'm good. Just thirsty."

Oliver smiled, that beautiful, adorable smile that always set Len's heart a good few BPM above its normal pace. "You can go sit on the couch if you want. I'll finish up and bring you some water."

Before Len departed, Oliver pulled him into a quick hug, gave his hand an even quicker squeeze.

Len barely made it to the couch before his knees gave out on him.

To think, he'd daydreamed about kissing only hours before. About _initiating _their first kiss. And _surviving_. At this rate, if they ever kissed, it would probably — no, not "probably". It _would _kill him.

Len pondered that thought for a while, staring at the ceiling. Footsteps made their way from the kitchen into the living room, and Oliver called out to him. And he grinned to himself so hard that his jaw began to ache.

If that was how he was going to die, then he couldn't think of a better way to go.


	5. The Mark of a Man

Of the nine members of the Kyokotta household, Oliver was the only one whose skin was completely unmarked.

Each of the Cryptonloids — Meiko, Kaito, Miku, the twins, and Luka — had similar tattoos on their upper-left arms, blocky, bright red numbers indicating the order in which they were created: 00 for the heads of the household, 01 for Miku, 02 for the twins, and 03 for Luka. From Miku on down, these tattoos had been part of them from the beginning, marked into their skin before their programming had even been uploaded into their bodies.

Meiko's and Kaito's tattoos had been added on later, by their own choice.

_"It was a month or two before Rin and Len came along,"_ Meiko had explained to Oliver one day shortly after his move to Japan. _"Miku was the only one with a tattoo. She felt really out-of-place. So Kaito and I got these bad boys at a shop the next day."_ She'd smiled then, leaning back into the couch and letting herself get lost in the memory. _"Miku was so touched. She actually cried. Kaito did too. A lot. Mostly while he was in the chair, though. Turns out he's got a super low pain threshold."_

Gakupo and Gumi were created without tattoos. Theirs, like Meiko's and Kaito's, came later, of their own will. Deep red camellias decorated Gakupo's back from shoulder to shoulder, a delicate and distinctively Japanese tattoo for a distinctively Japanese man. Gumi's was less traditional: a ribbed, orange eighth note, whose stem was designed to look like the leafy top of a carrot.

(Oliver had never actually seen it with his own eye, as it was, apparently, located on her left butt cheek. But Luka, the only person who ever got to see Gumi naked, had confirmed its existence, and that was good enough for him.)

As if being the only foreigner in the household didn't make him feel out-of-place enough. The Kyokotta household was Oliver's family, his closest friends, the ones who accepted him when no one else would. And he wanted to be as much like them as he possibly could.

More than anything in the world, he wanted a tattoo.

But of _what?_

* * *

"Actually," Gumi said when Oliver mentioned his desire at the weekly Thursday Night Household Dinner, "I made a proposal a while back, and I think this is the perfect time to bring it back!"

"We're not getting Crypton number tattoos," Gakupo quickly yet calmly countered. "Master would kill us."

Gumi reached across the table to tap his nose with the tip of one chopstick. "A scrawny guy sitting in an office all day verses a big, brawny, buff android with a katana? Oh, I'm _shaking_. Anyway, don't think about Master, think about us! We've got Zero through Three. You'll be Four, I'll be Five, and Ollie-Ollie can be Six! It'd be perfect!"

"Actually, there _is _a problem with that plan," Miku said, passing over Luka's delectable soba in favor of taking a bite straight out of a raw spring onion. "You're forgetting that Teto-chan has Four. So Gakkun would have to be Five."

"So to make all of our tattoos a full matching set," Kaito said, "we'd have to invite Kasane-chan to come live with us, otherwise we'd be one short."

"And considering she and Utane-chan have their own household to run," Luka added, staring in unsurprised disappointment at Miku's plate piled with spring onions and nothing more, "I'm pretty sure she'd turn that offer down."

"If one more person says 'Chan', I'm killing every last one of you and then myself," Meiko grumbled, not nearly as inebriated as she probably wished she was.

Rin slammed her fist down onto the tabletop then, commanding everyone's attention. "I've got a better idea: let's get matching butt tattoos like Gumi's! We can take a picture with all nine of us mooning the camera and then frame it and hang it in the entryway!"

Oliver left the table that night no more inspired than he'd been before.

* * *

It wasn't until that Saturday, while he and Len were laying together in the garden discussing the hostility of Canadian geese and watching James preen his feathers on a branch overhead, that the idea came to him.

"A _what?_" Len asked, still a little taken aback by the sudden single-word outburst.

"Segno!" Oliver repeated, fishing in his pocket for his phone. "You know how on your promotional outfits you've always got a bass clef somewhere and on Rin's she has a treble clef? Well on mine I've got a segno, which is…" He tapped the first picture his Google search pulled up and brandished the phone.

Len's eyes lit up in recognition when he saw it. "Oh, cool! I never actually knew what that was called. Knew what it meant, but I didn't realize it had a name."

From above them, James chirped.

"James thinks it would make an epic tattoo," Len translated. "And so do I."

If Oliver hadn't already made up his mind, the approval of his two favorite boys certainly did it for him.

* * *

Gaining total confidence in wanting a tattoo made Oliver more adventurous in his thoughts. He wanted a segno, small and black and either on his wrist or on the back of his left shoulder. (He might have entertained prettying up the left side of his face by getting it there, but that meant he'd have to take off his bandages for a total stranger and no, no, only one person got to see his deformity, he wasn't _that _adventurous.)

But why stop there? At his writing desk, he sketched up a few more designs. A tattoo for his dearest friend— a fluffy goldfinch on a snowy pine branch. A couple's tattoo— a segno intertwined with a bass clef in a manner that _kiiiiiiiiind of _looked like a heart if he squinted his eye enough. A second one that was just the two symbols inside of a heart. Yeah, that was better. A tattoo to immortalize the most heavenly of all earthly pleasures— golden caramel pudding, fresh from the fridge and surrounded by olive branches because everything looks prettier when you surround it with olive branches.

Everything that meant anything to him filled up page after page, people and things and experiences turning into art that Oliver had every intention of filling the canvas of his skin with. He was a simple person surrounded by spectacular beauty, and he wanted now more than ever to begin reflecting that beauty back.

And then he got to the tattoo parlor.

"_I'm gonna die,_" he whimpered into Len's shirt, digging the nails of his free hand into his back. "_I'm gonna die and I haven't even drafted up my will and everything's going to James anyway but I should have at least gotten that in writing before going to face my death and there's still so many things I wanted to do and— _"

A series of glances were cast back and forth between Len, Meiko, and the woman who hadn't even touched the needle to Oliver's wrist yet.

Once he had more or less rambled himself out, the artist looked at Meiko for approval, who looked at Len for confirmation, who finally nodded to the artist.

She moved in, and Len patted the back of Oliver's head. "Bite my shoulder if you need to, okay, babe?"

That was all the warning he got.

* * *

The tiniest segno, easily hidden with a thin rope bracelet, was now a part of Oliver forever. The tattoo had taken five minutes, maybe ten. The teeth marks in Len's shoulder would take longer to heal than the tattoo would.

When he got back from the parlor, he realized he'd left his tattoo drawings out on the writing desk.

Perhaps they were best left as drawings on paper and nothing more.

That evening, Oliver showed it off to the rest of the household, who _ooh_ed and _aah_ed and _aww, how cute!_ed over it and congratulated him on finally achieving his goal. Meiko, who had borne witness to Oliver sobbing like a little bitch over a glorified flu shot, proudly told everyone how he hadn't even flinched, how he took it better than Kaito had taken his.

"So?" Len asked, tracing his fingertips over the tattoo. "What do you think? Worth it?"

It was small and simple and kind of pathetic really, but it was _him_. A permanent mark of personhood, something that everyone in the household now had. Oliver smiled.

"Oh yeah. Definitely worth it." His shoulders shook with some combination of a laugh and a shudder. "But… never again."


	6. At My Worst

Oh God.

Oliver knew from the moment he walked in that something was wrong. On the opposite side of the bed, facing the wall, Len sat motionless, only the back of his head visible. Which was concerning enough. Sometimes he would hide in that crevice if he was feeling overwhelmed and needed someplace small and closed-off to reground himself.

Still, no big deal, Oliver figured as he came around the bed to Len's side. Nothing that he didn't know how to handle.

Then he realized just _how _off the situation was.

The first thing he noticed was how badly Len was shaking. Next was how tightly his arms were wound around his knees. Then the tears and snot streaking his cheeks, dripping from his chin, staining his shirt. His mouth was open, but except for the shaking, gasping breaths he took, he wasn't making a sound.

This… wasn't like anything he had seen before.

"Len?" he said, kneeling at his side. "Len, love, what's going on?"

Unresponsive. Len didn't so much as twitch or blink or do _anything _to indicate he'd even heard Oliver. He stared at the wall, eyes wide and unmoving.

Oh no.

He'd never seen Len having a full-on panic attack. He'd never even seen a panic attack until now.

Oliver once thought he had a good idea of what anxiety entailed and how to deal with it. He himself struggled with depression. They're both pretty common and require a lot of patience and comfort to curtail. Besides, he got anxious from time to time as well, so what more did he need to know?

A lot, he came to find out.

Occasional anxious tendencies and panic disorders are two different beasts. He couldn't just treat it the same way he treated his own issues. For starters, whenever he was having an episode, all he wanted was to be held tight and not let go of until all felt right with the world again. But Len? Being touched during a bout of anxiety only aggravated him. Being touched while having an attack, Oliver had been warned, made things even worse. Complete meltdown-level worse.

Luckily, Oliver never had to learn that the hard way. Rin had given him many a crash course on how to properly calm Len down in such a situation, and thanks to her tutelage he had always been able to do so with relative ease.

He'd just… never had to apply it to an actual, severe, full-blown _panic attack._

Downstairs, Rin and Gumi were entangled in some kind of video game tournament. He had half a mind to drag the other Kagamine away and upstairs because she, Oliver knew, had a 100% chance of total success compared to Oliver's maybe 80%, but—

No. The last thing Len needed was for him to run away.

"Len." Oliver lowered his voice in volume and pitch to something he hoped sounded soothing. "I want you to do something for me, okay, Len? Blink two times. Really heavy blinks. Can you do that?"

For a moment Len was just as unresponsive as he had been the first time Oliver spoke. Then his eyes closed and his face scrunched up once, twice. When they opened after the second blink, they moved. Not much. But Oliver could see them going to a new spot on the wall, just below where they had been so intensely trained.

"Good!" He caught himself trying to reach out and slapped himself mentally — _don't you dare, don't you dare make this worse for him _— offering more praises in place of the comforting touch he'd nearly attempted. "Good job. Very good. Let's breathe a little bit now, shall we? I'll do it with you."

Slowly, he inhaled through his nose until his lungs burned — _one, two, three, four _— held it, and then let it back out through his lips. _One, two, three, four._

When Len joined in, his breaths were much less rhythmic. _Gasp, hhuh, gasp-gasp, fwoo, huuua, fwooooo, _until finally he managed to more or less match Oliver's pace. As he breathed, Oliver watched. Len loosened his grip on his knees so that his chest had enough room to expand and contract. His eyes began to move a little more; he would blink, then focus them on a different fleck of paint on the wall. Blink, focus. Blink, focus, blink.

His tears slowed until they stopped almost entirely, pooling at his lower eyelids rather than falling down his cheeks. He wasn't shaking nearly as much anymore.

"Very good," Oliver repeated. "Now, take your time with this one. Keep on breathing, and while you do that, I want you to wiggle your toes. Just start with your big toe if you need to. Doesn't matter which one."

The delay wasn't quite as extended this time.

Time dragged on. Oliver led Len through all of the mundane exercises Rin had taught him, re-establishing his awareness of his body, bringing him back to his senses. By the end of the list, Len had let go of his knees, focusing on moving his fingers at his sides. He was still leaned forward, but he'd managed to untense himself enough to rest his spine against the bed frame.

The tears were gone and his nose had stopped running, but he still looked like a mess. Oliver couldn't help but chuckle.

"Do you want some tissues to wipe your face off?"

Len nodded. The movement of his head was slow, but there was no hesitation in his action. He was back.

Oliver waited patiently at his side as he wiped his face and blew his nose, taking the tissues once he was done and returning when they were disposed of. For a few moments more he watched as Len gathered his bearings.

He'd done it. Oliver had managed successfully to guide Len through a panic attack on his own.

He hadn't realized just how tense _he _had been until that realization forced him to relax. Suddenly he wanted nothing more than to curl up and pass out for a few hours.

"Do you want to talk about it?" he finally asked once Len's movements tapered. "What triggered it?"

The question made Len look back at the wall in front of him. He spent a few minutes staring, his lips moving as he thought, but ultimately all he could manage were two words.

"I… I don't…" He shook his head. Oliver hummed. It wasn't a very helpful answer, but those were also the first words Len had spoken since the whole ordeal began, so that was really the best he could hope for.

"That's okay, love. Just take it easy for now. We can talk about it later if you're up for it."

Len nodded.

"Are you thirsty?"

_Nod, nod._

Standing, Oliver stretched, trying to loosen his numb limbs. Kneeling for half an hour on hardwood floors isn't particularly comfortable. "I'll get you some water then. Be right back."

He hadn't even taken a full step when Len made a noise, something that sounded like "Um—". When he looked back, Len had turned his head in Oliver's direction, gaze trained on the ground.

His arm was still bent at his side, but his hand was outstretched, reaching.

Oliver smiled and did his best to ignore the twisting pain in his chest. "Do you want me to send Rin up here so you're not alone while I'm gone?"

A pause.

_Nod, nod, nod._

The game tournament had just ended when he got downstairs, so he felt a lot less bad about dragging her away now.

Rin was on the floor where Oliver had been when he returned with the drink. He couldn't quite hear what she was whispering to her brother, but he was smiling — a pathetically small smile, almost invisible, but very much _there _— and the relief was enough to overpower his curiosity.

She waited until Len had finished his first sip before speaking to Oliver.

"I told him he looks like shit."

Len huffed, and his smile became more obvious.

* * *

A voice from the kitchen doorway pulled Oliver out of his trance.

"If you guys aren't married by this time next year, I'm gonna propose to you for him."

The bluntness of the statement made Oliver choke on his snack bar; once he was done coughing his lungs out, he laughed, facing Rin as she made her way to the fridge. "What brought that on?"

"Gee, I dunno," she said, scanning the drink shelf as though she planned on picking anything other than orange soda, "maybe the fact that you single-handedly got him through a panic attack? Those things aren't easy to handle y'know."

Oliver shrugged. "We made a promise to be there for each other. It's nothing compared to what he's done for me."

"And that." She tapped her selected orange soda's top a few times before cracking it open. "I don't know if you _know _you're doing it, but you're keeping him in check. Len's, like, ridiculously self-sacrificing. He usually doesn't care what happens to him as long as everyone else is happy. But…"

She took a swig before going on. "He's gotten a lot better at taking care of himself because he knows you care. He doesn't want you to see him all broken down. And then when stuff like this happens, he knows you've got his back, so he doesn't try to repress it."

Oliver didn't even bother trying to hide his blush. "I mean, he also knows you'll kick his arse if he lets himself get too run-down."

"Yeah, that too." Shutting the refrigerator, Rin turned on her heel, not even looking back as she spoke. "Y'know, if I hadn't already trusted you before tonight, I sure as hell would trust you now. Which is convenient, 'cause he really _does_ wanna spend the rest of his life with you, and you know I'd never let him entertain that kind of notion if I thought he'd wind up getting hurt in the end."

Then she was gone, leaving Oliver frozen at the counter and wondering just how serious that statement had been.

* * *

"Ollie-kun?"

Oliver abandoned his effort to shut the door quietly when he heard Len's voice. "I'm sorry," he said, padding across the room to the bed. "Were you not asleep? If I knew you were awake I wouldn't have left."

From beneath the mound of covers Oliver had piled on him before leaving to get a snack, Len shook his head. "Just woke up."

He wasn't fully recovered just yet. His speech was less stilted and drawn out, and his aversion to touch was all but gone, but he still couldn't look Oliver in the eye. Oliver sat beside him and brushed his bangs away from his face. "Get some more rest, okay? And if you need anything else just tell me."

"Okay."

"Excellent." He leaned over to give Len's forehead a kiss. "I love you."

Staring hard at nothing in particular, Len responded with a different set of words than Oliver was expecting.

"Will you stay?"

Perhaps more startled than he should have been, Oliver chuckled. "Well, I mean, considering this is my room too I was, in fact, planning on staying."

Len chuckled in turn, and even in the darkness of the room Oliver could see the rush of blood that colored his face. "Yeah."

Long after Len had fallen asleep again, Oliver lay on his side, watching Len's chest rise and fall. Rin's earlier words echoed through his head, fractured bits and pieces that he did his best to string together into a single thought. And eventually, he found the words he needed.

"Of course I'll stay," he whispered across the bed. "I'll stay forever, if you'd like. Because I, um… I'd like that too."

Sighing, he closed his eye, forcing himself to ignore that twisting in his chest and focus on sleep.

If he'd kept his eye open a few seconds longer, he would have seen Len smile.


	7. Of a Feather

Vocaloids were created for one purpose and one purpose only: to sing. A Vocaloid who couldn't sing was a Vocaloid stripped of purpose, of meaning, reduced to a mere Oid. No amount of former glory could save a singing android who couldn't use their most powerful tool, and being functionally immortal meant shame and regret would follow them around for all of time.

Which was Oliver's reasoning for the breakdown he was having after losing his voice during choir practice.

"Oh God, we're heading back out," he whimpered after some ten minutes of frantic panicking. "I can't go back out there. I can't do it. Len, I can't— I can't—"

"It's gonna be okay! Just… take a couple deep breaths, okay, hun?" Len took a breath of his own when he heard Oliver following his suggestion. He at least sounded calmer than he did when he'd rang. "You've got this. Practice will be over in an hour and when you get home, Gakkun can give you a checkup. You might just be catching a cold or something."

Oliver took a few more breaths before responding. "Fair enough," he whispered, and Len could tell he still wasn't exactly reassured. He muttered a farewell and the line went dead before Len had time to return it.

He stared at the _Call Ended _screen for a moment longer, then he pocketed his phone and rubbed at his temples. As much ground as Oliver had made with his mental health over the years, he was still fairly volatile. If something uncomfortable or embarrassing happened (like, say, losing his voice while singing), he'd shut down and transform into a ball of blankets and self-loathing for anywhere from a few hours to a week.

Immediate action was needed to ensure that didn't happen. Len could easily take such action on his own. But why not go all-out, just to be safe?

And he knew just the guy to help him with this job.

Normally, James spent his days luxuriating in the garden, perching on branches and pecking at berries and seeds and bathing in the shoddy birdbath the household had built for him. He was not, however, a fan of cold weather. So every winter, the free room between Rin's room and Oliver and Len's room was turned into James' Winter Palace. The door was always left open in case he wished to flit about the house, but this was still the best place to start.

Every corner of the room was filled with little canopies and perches and nests for him to use as he pleased. Their colors caught Len's eye when he entered the room, but he couldn't spot any movement.

He whistled.

A tent-shaped canopy hung in the upper-right-hand corner of the room, stuffed with thistles. From the hole of the tent, a brownish-yellow head popped out.

"Sorry if I woke you up," Len said. "But it's kind of an emergency. Oliver's having a bad day." He held out his left arm, fingers loosely extended. "And we're gonna go make it better."

Beady black eyes looked back at him. James tilted his head. Then he untangled himself from his nest, pushed off from the canopy's opening, flapped his wings, and lighted on Len's index finger. Once he'd gotten his footing, Len brought his hand to his shoulder; James promptly hopped on, shaking out his feathers to signal that he was ready.

Len gave a firm nod of his head in return. "Let's do this."

* * *

Bringing James into town wasn't really an uncommon occurrence, but getting him inside could be a fairly difficult task. In the summer, his feathers were bright yellow, almost exactly the same shade as Len's hair, and so it was a little difficult to sneak him into public places. (Len would sometimes wear his hair down so James could hide in it, but thin as his hair was, it didn't do much to conceal the black tail feathers that poked out.)

His winter feathers were much more dulled, and the cold made him much less likely to bounce around and draw attention to himself. He could easily ride around in a coat pocket with no one any wiser.

For now, he still sat perched on Len's shoulder, twittering every few minutes when something caught his eye or when he just had something he wanted to say. Every so often, Len whistled back. He was getting better at this whole communication thing. It took months of study and observation, but he had finally picked up on the nuances of James' vocalizations and learned the correct responses.

At least that was what he wanted to believe. Oliver hadn't made fun of his communication attempts in a while, so Len took that as a sign that he'd become an official James Whisperer.

The walk to the auditorium where the local choirs practiced was on the other side of town, and the stretch of street they walked was lined with little shops and restaurants all the way there. If they didn't stop, they would get there fifteen minutes early.

If they _did _stop, they might cut it close, but maybe they could brighten Oliver's day that much more.

"Keep your eyes sharp," Len said, doing the same himself. "I was thinking we could pick up his favorite from Futsayo, but it would be better if we all went after we pick him up and had dinner together, don't'cha think? He needs some time to unwind before we get home. But if possible I don't wanna show up empty-handed. But it's on such short notice I don't even know what I could…"

James' wings smacked against his face, quickly shutting him up.

He was too small to inflict any damage, but Len still rubbed his cheek, looking over in the direction James had flown off to.

James was sitting on the sill of a shop window, the window itself adorned with brightly-painted flowers.

Of course! Len caught up and peered into the window. He'd been inside this modest little flower shop a few times before. Their anniversary was in late summer, which coincided with the blooming season of Oliver's favorite flowers. Ah, he could see his face now: sad and despondent from his practice, only to perk up upon realizing that Len held a bouquet of brightly-colored Persian buttercups. It was perfect.

But…

Len shook his head. "James, I'm not sure this is the best idea," he sighed, stuffing his numb hands back into his pockets. "I mean, it's the middle of winter. His favorites went out of bloom months ago."

When he looked down, James was looking right back at him. Then he turned back to the window.

_Tap tap tap. _Three quick taps with his beak against the window.

"James. They won't have his favorites."

_Tap tap tap tap tap tap tap._

"Those are literally the only flowers he likes! They won't have them in stock!"

_Tap tap __**tap tap tap TAP TAP TAP TAP—**_

"Okay, _okay!_" Len couldn't help but laugh as he scooped James up and opened his coat pocket for him. "Let's not break the window, okay, bud?"

James twittered happily as Len pushed the shop's door open. Maybe he had a point. Oliver only had one favorite, but he didn't actually dislike other flowers. A colorful bouquet of _anything _on this dreary, cold day was bound to cheer him up.

* * *

_**LATE BLOOMERS**_

_**Hibiscus, buttercups, platycodon**_

_**¥300 per stem, ¥3000 per dozen**_

And sitting among the display, just as the sign promised, was a vase stuffed with yellow, pink, and white Persian buttercups.

From Len's coat pocket, James whistled.

"Yeah, yeah," Len muttered, already at work picking out the fullest flowers, "you _did _tell me. No need to rub it in."

For someone who couldn't even talk, that bird had quite the mouth on him.

* * *

They arrived at the auditorium building just as a stream of teenagers poured out of the entrance. Len hung back, leaning against the brick exterior, watching the crowd carefully. Oliver could be hard to pick out from crowds. He was short and often walked with his head down, making it easy for him to blend in.

But Oliver wasn't in the initial crowd. Everyone cleared out, and not once did Len spot the blue knit cap he'd had on that morning or the fluffy flaxen hair that puffed out from beneath it.

Five minutes passed.

Len pulled out his phone. Had he fled early? Was he already on the way home, shuffling through the streets in a bid to hide beneath the covers for the rest of the day?

No messages showed up when he turned the phone on.

He was halfway through a _Where Are You _text when James chirped loudly into his ear.

Sure enough, there he was. He looked up at the same time Len did, and wow, he did _not _look his best, the poor thing. His cap was pulled all the way over his ears and his jacket was pulled up to his nose and his eye looked puffy and dark. So, throwing his phone back into his pocket, Len held the fresh bouquet of Oliver's favorites out to him.

On his shoulder, Len could feel James expand his wings, almost as if he was waving hello.

Just before Oliver broke into a run, the brightest open-mouthed smile spread across his face.

Mission successful.

* * *

"Told you it's just a cold. Nothing to worry about, see?"

Rather than acknowledge Len's words, Oliver scratched beneath James' chin. The goldfinch closed his eyes and leaned into the attention and puffed out his feathers in satisfaction. Oliver, with a vase of his favorite flowers in his and Len's room and a belly full of his favorite foods and a system full of cold syrup, giggled.

There would be no ball of blankets and self-loathing tonight. Len couldn't have asked for a better outcome.

Oliver yawned suddenly. "Gah. Stupid medicine."

"Ready to get to bed?"

"I need a shower first." Gently, he held his hand out, transferring James over to Len's finger. "Are you planning on joining?"

"Yeah. I'm gonna get James situated first."

"I'll make sure the water's nice and hot for you then." Oliver pressed a kiss to James' tiny forehead, giving an exaggerated _mmmmwah! _to go with it. "Sleep well, James. Thank you for everything today!"

James chirped back.

Once Oliver was comfortably out of sight, Len urged James onto his feeding perch so that he could rummage through the various bags of feed hidden in the closet. He came back out with a large scoop of The Good and Expensive and Probably Unhealthy In Large Quantities Seed.

"Our little secret," he said, pouring it into the dish attached to the perch. James hopped back and forth impatiently as he emptied the cup. "For being the best boy in the whole world."

Once the cup was empty, he thanked Len in his own little language and dove right in.

With the tips of his index and middle fingers, Len stroked his back. "Today wouldn't have gone nearly as well without your help, y'know. Thank you."

He could have sworn James was purring.

This bird, he'd thought more than once, couldn't be just a bird. Surely he was part-cat, part-dog, part-human, small and bird-shaped and covered in feathers. How else would he be so aware? He had a sixth sense tailored for making Oliver happy, it seemed, an internal dowsing rod that led him to the right places at the right times.

It would always mystify Len. But he learned to stop asking questions long ago.

He kissed the same spot on his head Oliver had kissed just minutes earlier, a wordless good-night. "Never stop looking out for him, okay?"


	8. How to Say I Love You in Japanese

Oliver spent a year learning Japanese prior to moving to Japan. Every morning for just over twelve months, he connected with one Megurine Luka over video chat and immersed himself in a language far removed from the corner of the world in which he lived.

It wasn't nearly as bad as he had been anticipating, really. The kana were easy to learn and the pronunciation system was straightforward and simple.

Learning the two-thousand-odd _kanji_ the Japanese used in day-to-day life? Now _that _was the hard part. He'd only learned about three-hundred before his move, and even now he hadn't learned much more than half of them. He knew the words and how to write them in _kana,_ but where the formal _kanji_ was needed, he relied on his phone or his friends to transcribe them for him.

Thankfully, Luka had been a patient teacher. From the start, she encouraged him to ease into the language at his own pace, swap English words with the words he'd learned, make simple, slow sentences stating the mundane.

_"Ohayou gozaimasu, Megurine-sensei. Kyou wa getsuyoubi, go-gatsu hatsuka desu. Kyou no tenki wa… um… sunny? Sunshine?"_

_"Hare desu."_

_"Hare desu. Kyou no tenki wa hare desu."_

_"Yokatta, Oribaa!"_

He'd often read, however, that no amount of lessons could prepare a person for total language immersion. And that was correct. Oh _man, _that was correct. He couldn't understand half of what was said at his own welcoming party, and for over a month, everyone in the Kyokotta household spoke to him in a mixture of heavily-accented, broken-up English and slow, deliberate, simplified Japanese.

Still, lacking the luxury of falling back on his native tongue with anyone but Luka, he picked up the language that much faster. Within his first few months, he was perfectly conversational, and by the end of his first year in Japan he considered himself comfortably fluent.

But here's the funny thing about language: it's an ever-evolving beast. Every language on Earth has its own subsets of languages. Public language, formal language, friendly language, familial language, even lovers' language.

Oliver thought he had all of them down pretty well. But it was only when he and Len started dating that he began to learn the Japanese language of love.

* * *

_Suki. _"I like you." _Daisuki. _"I like you a lot." _Aishiteru. _"I love you." He'd learned all of those words over video chat with Luka while still in England. He assumed they were used the same way those words were used in English. So he was a little confused when Len never uttered a _suki _one in the first month of their relationship, barring their initial exchange of confessions.

Near the beginning of Month Two, Len took his hands and looked him in the eye, face red, determination written across his features.

"_Hayasuginai to iinda, kore wa,_" he started out, lowering his eyes to their hands. Oliver's heart skipped. Too soon? Too soon for what? Was Len about to drop the _ai_-word?

Len took a deep breath, then looked back into his eye.

"_Oribaa, daisuki._"

...That was it?

"_Mo daisuki, Ren._" _Why would I be dating you if I didn't "really like" you back?_

Still, Len's face lit up like the Northern Lights, and he laughed and pulled Oliver into a hug and repeated a few more_ daisuki_s against his lips, so Oliver was content for the time being. Len had always been an actions-over-words type of person. Maybe that was why uttering such an obvious statement had been so nerve-wracking for him, Oliver reasoned.

After that, _suki _became a regular word passed between the two. It was nice and all, but still, it felt strange to Oliver. Who says "I like you!" to their boyfriend as he heads out the door for the day?

Luka winced when he finally asked her about it.

"I guess that would have been helpful to explain," she said apologetically. "See, words like 'love' aren't used quite as freely in our language as they are in English. It's rare and sacred and not to be taken lightly. Think of _daisuki_ as our equivalent to English's 'I love you,' and _aishiteru_ as something that transcends even that." She tapped a finger to her lower lip then, smiling a bit dryly. "In that respect, I'm a little surprised he's confessed his love so soon. He's got it bad."

Oliver frowned down at his lap. "So _aishiteru _is one of those words that just… isn't used?"

"No, it's used." Luka shrugged. "Just not often. It's usually said on wedding days, maybe anniversaries. Sometimes when one lover dies and the other needs to properly express grief."

Well, _that _was comforting.

"In English-speaking societies," she continued, "love almost _has _to be expressed in words. Here, you have to look closer. You have to pay attention rather than give empty promises. And this... might sound a bit preachy, but I feel like that kind of love is even stronger."

So that was what Oliver did. He began to pay attention.

* * *

It was subtle at first, little gestures that he was familiar with but hadn't really thought about.

Len spoke loudly and boisterously and used rather crass language when expressing strong opinions, a trait he shared with Rin and Meiko and Gumi. But when it was just them, his voice would soften. He'd enunciate his vowels more, draw out the ends of his words. He still used harsh words, but not quite as harsh and not quite as often. Oliver wasn't sure why, but it made him feel… special. Len only spoke like that for him. No one else but him.

When they lounged together on the couch in the living room or a bench in the park, Len would sit as close to him as decency would allow, wrap an arm around his shoulders, link their arms if the former option was unavailable. When they had lunch at Oliver's favorite cafe or went on a fancy dinner date, he made sure their feet touched under the table; if both hands weren't required for eating, he'd lay his hand palm-up on the table's surface, give Oliver's hand a squeeze when he laid it in his grasp.

When they walked around town, on a date or running an errand or just trying to find something to do, Len would take his hand. At first, they'd walk palm-in-palm, fingers cupped; as the day went on, Len's fingers would find and fill the spaces between his. By Month Four, he skipped the formalities and laced their fingers together as soon as their hands touched.

There was a word for finger-laced hand-holding, Oliver came to discover. _Koibitotsunagi. _Lovers' bond.

For some reason, that little bit of knowledge made him love holding Len's hand that much more.

* * *

Len, being tied for second-most famous Vocaloid in the household (tied with Rin and second behind Miku, of course), often had to leave early for recording sessions and photo shoots and whatnot. Since Oliver was a late sleeper, he didn't always get to see Len off. So on those days, Oliver would always find a note stuck to his door. The notes were at first random wishes for a good day or a reminder to do laundry or get something for James if he had time to run to town.

One morning, the note was in English. The letters were large and steady, the Os looped so tall and thin that they looked more like zeros.

_0liver, d0 y0u want t0 have a date t0night? I will leave studi0 at 18:00. text me if yes! have a g00d day _

Oliver was quick to text his response in kind.

O: Yes, I would love to go on a date tonight!

L: メモわかった？

O: はい、もちろん

L: すごおおおおおおおおい!

From that day on, the notes on Oliver's door were in English more often than not. The phrases were either oddly worded or clearly taken from a "Cute Things to Tell Your English-Speaking Partner" website, but Oliver cherished each one just the same.

* * *

Each night before they departed for their own rooms, Len would give Oliver a kiss. Some nights, it was little more than a quick peck on the lips. Other nights it turned into more: several small kisses exchanged between chuckles and goodnights. On those nights, Len would hold Oliver by the waist, keep his hold firm until it was time to part. Then when he let go, he did so slowly, almost reluctantly.

On one such night, Oliver decided to push the boundaries a bit.

When Len let go, Oliver drew him back in, pressed their lips together, held his head so he couldn't readily break away. This kiss was much longer than any they'd shared before, yet Len didn't move for the entirety of it.

Worried he'd taken a step too far, Oliver broke it off and swallowed a nervous gulp of air. No sooner did the oxygen reach his lungs than did Len cup his face in his hands, kissing him deeply, slowly. By the time they broke off, Oliver was delightfully lightheaded.

"..._Konban issho ni ite? _" The request was whispered against his cheek. "_Hi... hitoride kirai._"

They sat in Oliver's bed for a while, talking about nothing important, until Len began to doze off. Oliver pulled back the covers and slid beneath them and ushered Len to do the same. Just before he succumbed to his tiredness, Len sought out Oliver's hand, smiled when Oliver laced their fingers together.

They didn't really _mean _to move in together, but the arrangement was far too pleasant to only do once, and before they knew it Len automatically followed Oliver into his room each night. Their seven-month anniversary was spent dragging down one of the king-sized beds from upstairs and reorganizing the dresser and counters to make room for the rest of Len's belongings.

* * *

Their relationship progressed to a point that many relationships progress to one night during Month Ten, and so Oliver's mind was a little too hazy to register it when he heard it.

"_Aishiteru,_" Len whispered against his neck as he caught his breath. The tickle of his breath against Oliver's cooling skin made him shudder, so he curled up against him even more, not allowing for a single inch of space between them.

"_Mo aishiteru,_" he muttered back, as though he'd said it a hundred times before. They snuggled together in their own little cloud of bliss for God-knew-how-long, listening to each other's breathing and drifting in and out of consciousness.

It wasn't until an hour or two later, when they finally dragged themselves out of bed to clean up and wash off, that Oliver realized it. It hit him like a train, overtaking his whole body with such a powerful shock that, were he not already sitting, would have knocked him off of his feet.

"_Kimi no kao ga aki._" Len's fingers pulled away from his hair as he spoke, leaving Oliver sitting on the shower stool with a head full of suds. "_Daijoubu?_"

Oliver shifted on the stool to look at Len, who was watching him while reaching for the shower head. His face was pretty red, too, full of a tender vulnerability that Oliver was no stranger to.

_Aishiteru._

He had half a mind to ask Len to say it again.

But he already had. He'd said it every day since the day they got together. He said it in the notes he still left on the bedside table, the touch of his hand in Oliver's, the way he spoke and softened around Oliver and Oliver alone. Oliver didn't need a word to know how Len felt.

"_Daijoubu desu,_" he confirmed, facing forward again as Len turned the water back on and began to rinse his hair. His jaw ached with the smile that split his face. "_Honto ni shiawase._"

With the suds gone, Len leaned Oliver's head back and kissed the skin where his forehead and hairline met. "_Boku mo shiawase._"

Oliver stood to swap places and wash Len's hair, but before Len sat, he pulled Oliver into an embrace and kissed his cheek.

"_Honto ni aishiteru,_" he said into Oliver's ear, as though he were imparting a precious secret. "_Honto, honto ni aishiteru._"

Oliver melted into him at the words, laughing and kissing him and forgetting that they still needed to finish washing off.

He didn't need to hear the word to be certain of Len's feelings. But... hearing it was still pretty nice.

* * *

**Japanese lesson time!**

_**Kyou wa getsuyoubi, go-gatsu hatsuka desu. Kyou no tenki wa hare desu.**_  
**Today is Monday, May 20th. The weather is sunny today.**

_**Hayasuginai to iinda, kore wa.**_  
**I hope this isn't too soon.**

**Oliver and Len's text conversation:**  
**_Memo wakatta?_ (You understood the note?)**  
**_Hai, mochiron_ (Yes, of course)**  
**_Sugoooooooooi!_ (Awesoooooooome!)**

_**Konban issho ni ite? Hitoride kirai.**_  
**Will you stay with me tonight? I don't like being alone.**

_**Kimi no kao ga aki. Daijoubu?**_  
**Your face is red. Are you okay?**

_**Honto ni shiawase.**_  
**I'm really happy.**


	9. Dinner and a Movie

**A bit of pre-relationship fluff for ya.**

* * *

"So…" Oliver tapped his fingers against the table as he searched for his words, translating the Japanese into English and then regurgitating them in his own simplified Japanese. "Valentine's Day is… without males? It's a girl's holiday? And the boy's holiday is this day in March?"

"Yup!" Len confirmed. "Girls give presents to guys on Valentine's Day, and we return the favor on White Day."

Oliver _ooh_ed. "That's interesting. I've never heard of a holiday like that."

"It's more convenient that way too," Gakupo said. "Rather than giving gifts blindly in the futile hope that someone remembered you, you don't have to waste your time and money and energy. You know up-front that you've been forgotten, and that ultimately spares you further heartache."

Kaito set his beer down, the look he sent Gakupo's way filled with shock and concern. "You okay, man? Wanna talk about it?"

Gakupo gave a forlorn sigh and took a lethargic bite from a mozzarella stick.

February 13th. Every year, on this very day, all males were exiled from the house from 18:00 to 23:00 while the girls whipped up chocolates for them (and for each other). And so for five hours, Gakupo, Kaito, and Len would wander Kyokotta, grab something to eat, hit up an arcade or a karaoke joint, just have a fun-packed guy's night.

When Len informed Oliver of the tradition and extended a formal invitation to join, Oliver was hesitant. He wasn't one for a night on the town, or, well… socialization in general. In the month Len had known him, he'd spoken enough to fill a page or two of a children's picture book, looked Len in the eye exactly twice, and never longer than half a second. Len had expected such a reaction to the T.

What he hadn't expected was for him to accept the invitation anyway.

While they hadn't known each other for long, and while Oliver rarely spoke unless spoken to, Len had still learned a thing or two about him. For example, though he was shy, Oliver didn't like being alone. He would never ask to be included in plans. But when Len and Rin invited him out, he'd readily accept. He'd hang back for the most part, but he'd always thank them for letting him tag along.

Oliver, he'd figured out, really wanted to be everyone's friend. He just didn't know how.

But he didn't handle the thought of excitement very well. Len wasn't sure if it was a social issue or a sensitivity issue or if he was just afraid to let loose in front of people he still didn't know as well as he wanted.

So Len quickly consulted with the other two to alter their plans. Ultimately, they decided on something more subdued than usual: a casual dinner, then a movie, then a few stops at some local shops on the way home. Perfect for the shy and skittish Oliver.

As of the appetizer course, Oliver had yet to look up from his hands, which he wrung on the table. But he nodded when someone was telling a story, and he grinned when something funny was said, and he was actually _talking_, so Len hoped that meant he was having a good time.

"Don't feel so sad," Oliver said, briefly glancing to Gakupo then looking back down just as quickly. "You're kind. Anyone could get lucky with you."

Gakupo blinked and Kaito winced at the exact same moment that Len looked their way.

"He's right!" Len chimed in before they could point out the error. Knowing that he had just implied that Gakupo was easy to seduce would only ensure Oliver never spoke again. "Anyone would _be _lucky _to be _with you." He stressed the important words so that Oliver could hear them and glared across the table as he did so, a silent _Don't you dare tell him what he just said_.

Luckily, Gakupo's face had softened, and Kaito simply hid his laughter behind his beer.

"That means a lot to me, Ollie-dono. Thank you."

Len glanced to his right.

He'd never seen Oliver smile so radiantly.

* * *

With dinner under their belts (and in their stomachs), the quad made their way to the theater and left the task of grabbing snacks to the teens. The adults went on ahead to save seats. Oliver accidentally walked in front of Len, and so the snack bar attendant addressed him first.

"What will you have?"

Oliver turned around, looking to Len as if for approval.

"You can go ahead," he said, taking the chance to check his phone. "I'll get the rest. Don't worry about it."

He didn't realize anything was wrong until he heard the attendant again.

"What will you have?" she repeated to Oliver. Her voice was laced with strained patience.

Len looked up from his phone.

Oliver was silent. He stood still. Deathly still.

Len wasn't sure what happened. He didn't even think about it. But he knew he had to help. He pocketed his phone and took Oliver's shoulders and guided him away from the counter and the pushy woman, into a nearby corner.

"You okay?" He turned Oliver around so that they were face-to-face. "You froze up. Could you not decide?"

For a moment, Oliver's face was blank. Then his eye welled up with tears.

"I… I…" He sniffed. "I forgot… I forgot what to say… I forgot the word and-and there wasn't a sign I could read or anything I could point to—"

It overcame Len again, that tugging feeling in his limbs, telling him to stop standing there and _do something_.

He pulled Oliver against his chest and wrapped his arms around him.

_Bad idea bad idea __**bad idea,**_his head screamed at him. Someone as fearful as Oliver surely hated to be touched. And here Len had gone and jumped right in with full-body contact and good frickin' job Len, ya just made it worse.

Oliver lifted his arms.

Rather than push Len away, he hugged him back.

A shock rushed through Len, making him feel all at once burning hot and icy cold.

"It's humiliating," Oliver whimpered into his shoulder. "I move to another country and I can't even speak the language well. I-I really am worthless, aren't I?"

The hold he had on Len was loose, as if he was scared to embrace him too tightly, but he was warm. His breath was heavy from trying to hold in his tears and the feeling of him in Len's arms was… comfortable. His words were so sad, so miserable, but filled with the same kind warmth that radiated from his being.

So Len held him tighter.

"You're not worthless," he promised. "You've only studied Japanese for, what, like a year? Languages are hard! You've heard my English, right?"

Oliver shook his head. "Your English isn't bad."

"Yeah? It's not bad when I rehearse what I'm gonna say. But how about _this?_"

Len's English was genuinely bad, sure, but he knew several words and a few phrases which he used when on tour in America. But Oliver needed a smile now more than ever, so he recited a basic greeting and went out of his way to absolutely blow it.

Oliver coughed. Then he laughed.

That was the first time Len had ever heard him laugh.

"No. There's no way. That was _comically _bad."

"Okay, okay, there might have been a slight exaggeration, but I promise it's almost that bad for real. So the fact that we're even talking like this when you've only been learning the language for a year just proves how kickass you are."

Once more, Oliver sniffed, then he let Len go. Out of courtesy, Len did the same.

He felt uncomfortably cold all of a sudden.

Oliver wiped his eye with his sleeve. "Um… w-would you mind if I, um, went ahead and… I-I don't want to face that woman again."

Forcing himself out of his fog, Len backed up, adopting as casual a stance as he could manage. "Yeah, sure! I'll go ahead and get you something. Do you remember the word for what you wanted?"

A pause.

"P… popcorn." He ducked his head, but Len could still see the flush that spread across his face. "It's the same word in Japanese and English. I'm an idiot."

Len gave another reassurance as he walked away, a spring his step.

He'd made Oliver laugh.

He had such a nice laugh.

* * *

Poking around in the stores proved uneventful. Oliver made a cheap purchase, but other than that, nothing sparked anyone's fancy. But it was already nearing 23:00, so they decided to call it a night and head home.

Len's room was just across from Oliver's, so he struck up some small talk about the movie they'd seen as they went upstairs, small talk that turned into a full-fledged conversation that kept them outside of their rooms for a good twenty minutes.

In the month he'd known Oliver, Len had never heard him speak as much as he had that night. His voice was soft and gentle, joyful, even.

Eventually, Oliver yawned and blinked heavily, and so Len reluctantly steered the conversation to a close.

"We get to sleep in tomorrow," he said. "Then we all go downstairs and the girls make a big show about giving us chocolates and it's a ton of fun. But I'll stop talking your ear off and let you get to bed."

But before he could bid him goodnight, Oliver stopped him. He muttered a "Wait a minute", reached into the bag he'd carried from the store, took a step back, and bowed fully at the waist, arms extended forward, his purchase in his hands.

The purchase? Apparently, a heart-shaped box of chocolates.

Which he was offering to Len.

What.

_What._

_**What.**_

"Valentine's Day is a day to give presents to important boys in one's life," he started, his words carefully rehearsed. "It's not until tomorrow, I know, but since men don't give presents on Valentine's Day, I thought it would be more fitting to give this to you now."

All too many thoughts sprinted through Len's mind, his feet glued to the ground. What was happening? What did he mean? Important boy? Context? _What was the context?_

"I, um… I hope this isn't inappropriate," Oliver continued when Len didn't immediately take the box. "I-I know it's heart-shaped and all, but I didn't even think about that until I'd already bought it. I just thought, I mean, it looked high-quality so I…"

Slowly, Len's senses came back to him. Okay. An innocent explanation. That was good. That was good.

"I-it's not inappropriate at all!" He took the box, glancing it over. The image on the front certainly looked enticing. He'd never had that brand before.

Oliver straightened himself.

He looked up. Right into Len's eyes.

And he held that eye contact. One, two, three—

"Anyway." Oliver smiled and looked back down at the floor. "Thank you for everything you've done for me. I, um… I want to continue to get close to you. G-goodnight."

And then he was gone.

* * *

Len wasn't naïve. He wasn't one to lay in bed on a sleepless night, hand on his chest, pondering the thumping of his maiden heart and what it might mean.

No, Len was perfectly aware that he had a crush on Oliver.

He flipped onto his stomach and groaned into his pillow.

_Get a _grip_, will you? You've known the guy for like a month. __Which is longer than most people you've liked before.__ Chocolates aren't inherently romantic. And heart-shaped boxes are all that's available this time of year. __Though he could've just gotten you a candy bar or a stuffed animal or something.__ Plus, White Day isn't a thing in England. Of course he'd hand out gifts today. __Ignoring the fact that you explained the whole concept of White Day to him and he _still_ got them for you today._ _Besides, you don't even know if he's into guys. __But have you ever met a Vocaloid that's completely straight?_

He flipped onto his back again and stared hard at the ceiling, as though the paint would somehow give him answers.

There was a spot where the paint had dried unevenly, making an abstract shape. A shape that kinda looked like a certain boy in a sailor's cap.

"Oh my _God,_ I _get it!_" Frustration compelled Len to launch his pillow at the offending paint spot. "Can't I get a present from someone without going all gaga for them?! Just give me that much!"

But he wouldn't get that much. He never did.

His night was spent muttering curses to the heavens and scrolling through his Instagram feed until he fell into a discontented sleep.

* * *

Luka's chocolates were always heavenly. Miku's were nothing to sniff at. Rin's were usually hit-or-miss, Meiko's could knock a hardened alcoholic off of his feet, and nine times out of ten, Gumi's contained some ingredient that did not belong anywhere _near _chocolate.

By the time his head hit his pillow on the night of the 14th, Len had had enough chocolate to last him for a while.

Until a flash of red caught his eye.

The box of chocolates. His gift from Oliver. He'd thrown it on his writing desk the night before and did his best to forget about it, somehow convincing himself that forgetting its existence would mean forgetting his newfound feelings towards its gifter.

What would one piece hurt?

Len took a bite, and almost immediately, it melted on his tongue. It was easily the most delicious store-bought chocolate he'd ever tasted.

He had one piece, then another, then another, until the whole box was empty.

So he liked Oliver.

His heart sped, but he didn't bother trying to ignore it.

Yeah. He liked Oliver.

What would a little crush hurt?


	10. The First Time

The water was still running in the bathroom when Len slipped back into his and Oliver's room. Good. He had taken advantage of the free bathroom one door over and rushed through a shower of his own to make sure he'd have plenty of time to set up. The more he could do to ensure Oliver was comfortable, the better.

It was 22:23 when he set to work. He smoothed out the bedding, fluffed the pillows, switched the lamp on and the overhead light off. Rearranged the pillows. Re-smoothed the comforter. Stepped back to admire his work, then glanced at the clock again.

22:25.

The shower was still running.

Len pursed his lips. Surely there was something else he could do. Maybe he could rummage through the junk room, find some candles to light.

_Maybe you should cover the bed in rose petals and pose naked with a saxophone while you're at it, you cliché-loving dweeb._

No better idea had presented itself when he heard the bathroom door click open.

In the doorway stood Oliver, dressed in a loose T-shirt and pajama pants, droplets of water still hanging from the ends of his hair and making wet patches on his shirt and his facial bandages as they fell. As for Oliver himself, he was unnervingly motionless, like he'd stared into the face of Medusa herself. Len was sure he looked the same.

Right. This was happening.

Len's mind said, _Say something witty to ease the tension._

His mouth said, "Uh, hhh_hhhhh_ey, um-uh… hey".

His mind said, _You're a fucking idiot._

"H-hey," Oliver said back.

The silence that ensued was so thick, Len could have stripped off his clothes and swam in it if he was so inclined.

Finally, Oliver cleared his throat.

"You can, um… go ahead and sit. If you want."

Lacking much else to do, Len complied. Once he was situated on his usual side of the bed, cross-legged and face turned down, Oliver joined him, occupying his usual side as well.

"So," he said, eye trained on the navy-blue comforter.

"...So," Len agreed.

This was getting them nowhere.

What could he do to make it less… awkward? Len mulled his options over. Should he take the approach of acknowledging how unfamiliar and slightly terrifying this all was, just getting it out in the open so they could be honest with each other? Should he do what the confident-type characters always did in the movies: scoop Oliver into his arms, kiss him passionately, let themselves be wordlessly consumed with bliss?

The former, he feared, would only make Oliver more uncomfortable, and the latter he _knew _would make him uncomfortable. That was the last thing Len wanted. But he wasn't sure what to do. This was a new experience for him, too.

He wasn't used to not knowing what to do. It frustrated him to no end.

Unable to find a better option, he prepared to take Approach #1, and the words were already forming on his tongue when Oliver's voice stopped him.

"T-there's something that I… um…" He wrung his hands together and his fingers fidgeted endlessly, but even through their movements, Len could tell his hands were shaking. So he shifted to where he was facing Oliver and waited patiently for him to find the words he needed.

"Before we— you know, um, get started, I… There's something I… want to, um... show you." The words were quiet, more a breath than a sound. "If you're okay with it?"

Once he'd spoken, he hugged his arms as though a sudden chill had overtaken him. He didn't look at Len directly; he turned his head and peeked up through his lashes, tucking his chin into his chest and pulling his shoulders as close to his ears as they could go. His nails dug deeply into his skin, threatening to draw blood if he tensed up even the slightest bit more.

Len hadn't seen him look so scared since… well, no, he'd never seen him this scared.

Yet somewhere behind that fear laid something else. In his honey-golden eye was a plea. A plea for what? Len wanted to reach out and offer him solace, but would that make it worse or better?

Unsure, he simply nodded. "Of course, yeah."

Oliver whispered a shaky "Okay" in return. He let go of his arms, inhaled deeply, closed his eye, reached behind his head, and… began to unwind his bandages.

Len barely caught himself before he gasped.

Was this happening? Was this really, honest-to-God happening?

Oliver placed the unwound bandages on his lap and stared down at them, as though he couldn't believe what was happening, either. He took another breath. Tucked his hair behind his ear. Faced Len. Looked up.

Len felt for all the world that a road roller had just been driven over his chest.

Patches of skin, stretching from the base of Oliver's ear and up to his forehead, were bright red, as though they had been burned and never quite healed. Where his left eye should have been, there was nothing. Only a pair of eyelids sewn tightly shut to make one long, nasty-looking scar.

"_Whoa._" Len couldn't stop it. He couldn't say much else.

His fingers and toes turned icy the moment Oliver winced and looked back at his lap. "Heh, yeah, I-I know, it's pretty bad, isn't—"

"No!" Oliver flinched again, so Len quickly rambled on, praying his words weren't just making it worse. "I think it's cool!"

At those words, Oliver looked up again, blinking in confusion. Len stared back in earnest.

No one had ever seen his face in whole. Not even Len.

When they'd first started dating, Oliver had suggested showing him as part of their promise to be open with one another. He'd tried to hide it, but it was clear the thought terrified him. So Len had promised that it didn't matter. _"Whatever's under those bandages, and whether or not I ever see it, it won't change how I feel about you." _And that was the last they'd spoken of it.

Now that he _was _seeing it, Len… wasn't sure how he felt. His stomach twinged the longer he stared, the same way the body reacts to watching a stupid person on the internet maiming themselves for five minutes of fame. It looked painful. Very much so. Yet he wasn't disgusted by it.

He wasn't really sure why "cool" was the first word that had come to mind. But now it was out in the air, and he had to roll with it.

"I mean…" By some miracle, a scenario popped into his head, so wonderfully bizarre that he laughed and quickly gave it a voice. "It's like you got into a fistfight with a shark and came out victorious, and that's your battle scar. It's badass!"

Oliver coughed roughly, a type of laugh he only gave when he was caught off-guard. That was usually a good thing.

"Y-you know, put that way…" Oliver held his cheek, his ring finger tapping lightly against the scar, and the faintest hint of a smile ghosted his lips. "That _does _sound cool, doesn't it?" But the smile was all too short-lived. "I wish the story really were that cool. Then maybe I wouldn't…"

As his voice trailed off, he moved his hand higher up his face, so that his fingers hid the disfiguration almost entirely. Len's stomach twinged again, this time in a deep sympathy.

He rested a hand on Oliver's knee. "So what _is _the story?" he asked softly. "Just if you wanna tell it."

Oliver looked down at Len's hand and shrugged. "The company that made me… they don't really have the best track record for keeping their Vocaloids in one piece. It was just superficial imperfections with Al and Ann, theirs healed up in a year or two, but—" he chuckled humorlessly. "Our master got a ban on making Vocaloids after they screwed me up so royally. Just for a few years, but still."

"Yours is pretty superficial too, isn't it?" Len vaguely remembered Googling Oliver's former housemates once. Older pictures showed a couple that had staples in their head or neck, though the most recent ones he'd seen had both Vocaloids lacking any obvious outward flaws. "Maybe a little harder to hide or heal, but still—"

"It's not just… this," Oliver interrupted, removing his hand just long enough to gesture to the injured half of his face. "I was supposed to be more, you know, conventional. Taller. Deeper voice. My set age was always seventeen, but they never released that information because they knew no one would believe it after how badly they mucked me up. So everyone just kind of makes their best guess, though it's rarely right."

Len hummed. Oliver was often mistaken for a child because of his petite build and soft, feminine voice. It was his number one pet peeve. Knowing now that he wasn't even _intentionally _built that way…

"So, um, anyway… They blew their budget trying to fix me, and that didn't work out. So when this happened, they couldn't afford to do much more than knock me out and stitch it up. I-I don't even know if they ever took the eye out."

Another _whoa _involuntarily made its way past Len's lips. "Seriously?"

"Yeah. Like, if I do this…" Oliver closed his good eye and pressed the pads of his fingers against both sockets. "My left eye — er, what's left of it — it feels different from the right eye, but it doesn't feel hollow. See?"

How does a person go from being shrunken into themselves to pressing at their eyes and explaining how a melted eyeball can remain attached to a useless optical nerve in the span of just a few minutes? Len's stifled laugh startled Oliver, and he quickly stuffed his hands back into his lap. He no longer looked so scared, at least.

"So, um…" Oliver cleared his throat. "Anyway. That's that. Uh… any other questions?"

Len had several questions. But there was one he wanted to ask more than any other.

"May I…?" He removed his hand from Oliver's knee and extended his fingers forward, letting the gesture finish his question.

Oliver's face flushed and his eye went wide, but he stuttered an affirmative.

So Len, as though he were moving through water or maybe molasses, reached out and up. Touched his fingers to Oliver's left cheek, bared to another person for the first time.

At his touch, Oliver winced, so Len waited until he relaxed to cup his cheek.

Slowly, diffidently, he traced his thumb over the scar. It was thick and mostly smooth, with the occasional indentation from the stitches that still held his eyelids together. A noise like a whimper or a grunt sounded at the back of Oliver's throat.

"D-does it hurt?"

Oliver muttered a couple of _no_s, eye fixed on Len's shirt. "It, um, i-i-it hasn't hurt in years. So you're good. P-please, um... continue."

Len watched his face a moment longer to ensure he was alright, then he traced the patches of burned flesh with his other fingers. They felt out-of-place on his velvety skin, but not in the way Len had expected: rather than rough and dry, they were smooth, almost glass-like.

Through the majority of it, Oliver kept his good eye closed, his brows lifted just slightly. The lamp cast a warm glow across his face, a glow that burst into glimmering light when it hit his burns.

He was… mesmerizing, in a word.

When he brought his hand back to himself, Oliver released a breath, one that Len hadn't realized he'd been holding.

"Thank you."

Rapidly, Oliver shook his head. "Why are you thanking me? I should be thanking you for, you know, not— not jumping out of the, uh, the window or… something."

It was Len's turn to cough-laugh. "Ollie-kun, I told you, nothing could change how I feel about you!"

"Not even knowing your boyfriend's hideously deformed?" Oliver's chuckle was far too forced, but he continued before Len could say anything. "Really, though. Thank you. I was so scared. But I wanted to show you at some point. And since we're about to…" He cleared his throat. "I... figured tonight was a good time to do this. Good a time as any."

Ah, right. In the shock of seeing Oliver unbandaged for the first time, Len had forgotten their original plan for that night. "Yeah, I mean," he joked, "we're gonna end up naked anyway, so might as well start from the top and work our way down, right?"

Oliver's giggle seemed much more genuine this time; whatever tension he still held in his shoulders dissipated. He looked more relaxed than he had all night.

"Thank you," Len said again. He brushed his fingers through Oliver's hair, his fingers getting wet in the process. "I know this took a lot of courage. Thank you for trusting me."

Oliver looked up at him, smiled, then looked back down to his lap, where his bandage strip still lay. He took it in his hands and straightened it out.

Len's hands twitched.

"You're putting them back on?"

Oliver looked back up with a start. "I don't want to ruin the mood." He adjusted the strip between his fingers, ducking his head and muttering his next words. "I mean, staring at _this _while you're trying to make love to me, there's no way that would be… I don't want you to—"

Before he could continue — before he could begin to rebandage himself — Len took his face in his hands. Pulled him forward. Pressed his lips to the scar where his left eye was no longer.

"You're beautiful," he said, perhaps more firmly than he meant. "Just like this."

He kept his palms pressed against Oliver's face and looked deeply into his eye. Oliver looked shocked, like he'd just been struck by white-hot lightning.

The same way Len felt.

But he meant it, he realized. This injury or deformity or whatever Oliver wanted to call it — it was a part of Oliver, a unique part of a bewitching whole. And every last inch of burned flesh, every stitch holding his eyelids together, all of it was every bit as beautiful as he was.

Looking upon his face was a blessing that had been bestowed on Len and Len alone. And he wanted to look into that face every day for the rest of his life.

On that face, Oliver's lip began to quiver.

Then the tears started.

Warm admiration fled from Len's veins and was replaced with a frigid panic.

"Oh, no no no no no don't cry!" He let go, but his unsure hands came back to Oliver's face almost immediately, wiping his tears as they fell. "If you'd be more comfortable covering it back up then go ahead! I just meant to say that you don't have to if you don't want to because I really do think you're—"

Oliver muttered something, but his voice was shaking and inaudible.

"What?"

He sniffed. "I'm happy," he repeated, holding his own hand against the back of Len's. And indeed, he glowed brightly enough to outshine the sun and the moon and every last star in the night sky, his smile so strong it made his right eye nearly match his left.

Len would have kissed him then and there if he didn't lower his head first.

"I've never felt beautiful, you know." Oliver sniffed again and swiped at his nose with his free hand. "But for once, I really feel like I am. And it's such a strange feeling but it's so nice."

Now it was Len's turn to tear up. "Ollie-kun…!"

Oliver pulled Len's hand from his face and hugged him tightly, weeping and laughing into his shoulder. His hair still hadn't fully dried. Gingerbread-scented shampoo filled Len's nostrils, a familiar and comfortable scent.

He would have been perfectly content to end the night there, holding his best friend and most beloved until the sun came up.

But eventually, Oliver pulled back, eye still watering but face radiant. "Well, um… if you're ready, then I'm ready."

A rush of nervous excitement overcame Len, so powerful that even the tips of his ears felt hot. No. As nice as just cuddling for hours on end would have been, there _was _something he wanted more. "I'm ready if you're ready."

He cupped the still-beaming Oliver's left cheek in his palm, pressed their foreheads together, breathed in his scent; one more time, he traced his thumb over the scar of Oliver's left eye.

_"Beautiful,_" he whispered, and then the space between them was nonexistent.


	11. The Chronicles Begin, Part 1

**And now, a look at the events leading up into their relationship. Please enjoy!**

* * *

"Oliver, I… I need to talk to you."

Len clenched his fists. He wasn't prepared. He was _not _prepared. But he didn't have a choice. He had to do this.

"Look, I… we've been friends for… I know it's only been like half a year, but, I mean… it feels a lot longer. You know?" He ran his fingers through his bangs, the thick layer of hair gel keeping them spiked in place preventing the action from being as smooth as he'd hoped. "And for a little while now I've felt like… y'know, maybe we could… I mean, it's just — I… think I…"

He gulped heavily.

"I… I love you."

He stared ahead, doing his best not to break eye contact, waiting and praying that he'd done everything right.

"...Alright. That was…"

Those three words were weighed with a heavy disapproval. Len's heart sank just a bit.

"Bad?"

"Not the worst I've heard, but pretty damn bad, yeah."

Groaning, Len brushed at his bangs again in a half-hearted effort to get them back into shape. "Cut me some slack. That was the only attempt I've ever made."

"A noble attempt," Meiko assured. She licked her fingertips and swatted Len's hands away and set to work restructuring his hair. "You've got a solid base. Good start. Although you might not wanna jump in with the L-word just yet. Only two types of people do that: stalkers and serial killers."

"Well, I'm not really planning—"

"Don't stammer so much. You gotta be confident."

"I'm not—"

"Great." She tapered the last of his spikes to a point, then she dropped her hands to his shoulders. "Now! Repeat after me. 'Oliver! I like you! Date me!'"

"That's way too forceful!"

"Gets the message across though, doesn't it? C'mon, strong, proud! 'Oliver! I like—'"

"I'm not planning on telling him, Mei-chan!"

Meiko had a way of both comforting and intimidating Len at the same time. But right now, beneath the frosty bite of her incredulity, he just felt stupid.

"Then why'd you bother practicing your confession?"

"Because you told me I had to." Although he _had _been disappointed that his attempt was deemed mediocre, but that was just more proof that it wasn't meant to happen in the first place.

Meiko let go of his shoulders and placed her hands on her hips, the corner of her mouth pulled down. "You can't deal with all of your problems by bottling your feelings up and waiting for them to go away."

Len shrugged. "It's worked for me so far."

Closing her eyes, Meiko blew a stream of air through her mouth, tapping her tongue to the roof of her mouth a few times — _fwoooootututututu. _"Okay. So I'm guessing Rin knows about this, and I'm guessing she's told you the same things I'm telling you."

"Yup."

"If you're looking for someone to sympathize with what you're doing but not try to convince you to be honest with him, try Miku."

"She couldn't keep a secret this big."

"Yeah, you've got a point." She peeked one eye open. "And if you're telling _me _you're not gonna do it, I'm guessing you can't be convinced."

Len shook his head.

It wasn't that he particularly _wanted _to keep these feelings bottled away. In a perfect world, he'd be open about them: he'd tell Oliver about the anxious peace he felt when they were alone together, the quiet ache in his chest when he lay in bed alone each night, his desire to see where this relationship could lead, what it could bloom into.

But that wasn't a risk he was willing to take. Oliver, he was certain, had no interest in him, much less a serious relationship in general. It had taken him so long to open himself up not just to Len, but to the rest of the household. For possibly the first time in his life, Oliver was surrounded by people that loved him, accepted him, took him just as he was.

If he found out how Len felt, he would feel obligated to return those feelings, Len feared. He would be put on the spot, forced into something unfamiliar and uncomfortable, but he wouldn't say no for fear of offending Len and losing their friendship. And that would make for a very strained relationship that would ultimately ruin both Oliver's happiness and their friendship.

Last week, Len had almost made that mistake. All the hours of pouring his heart out to his twin sister for the sake of keeping things at bay had almost been for naught in a moment of carelessness.

That was why he'd decided to share his feelings with Meiko. Maybe if there was someone else he could confide in, he wouldn't make the same slip-up twice. He hadn't been expecting sympathy. He just couldn't afford to make another mistake.

He didn't want to lose his best friend to something so selfish.

Meiko patted Len's forearm, right over his tattoo. "You know you're my favorite, right?"

"But I'm one dense motherfucker?"

"That's my boy." Len smiled as she pinched his arm. "I'm gonna call you an idiot for keeping it to yourself, but if you need to get all those lovestruck thoughts off your mind and Rin gets sick of your shit, you know Mei-chan's always here. And if you change your mind, I'll help you write the most flowery love confession this side of Hokkaido."

Indeed, she had a way of intimidating and comforting in equal measures.

"Thanks, Mei-chan." He shrugged her hand away. "I wouldn't hold out hope on that last one though. I honestly doubt the thought of being more's ever even occurred to him."

* * *

"I like you, Len."

"Len, I really like you."

"I like you a lot."

"Will you go out with me?"

"Let's be more than friends."

"I like you."

"I like you."

When he ran out of words, Oliver scowled at his reflection and tried to look serious and angry. Maybe he could intimidate some kind of concrete feeling out of himself this way. But his legs were numb and burning from sitting cross-legged on the bathroom countertop and his face was too round to look scary, so, for the time being, he decided to call it a night.

He slammed the bathroom door shut and threw himself back onto his bed, stretching his legs into the air. Another mirror ritual. Another twenty minutes he'd never get back. Another fruitless effort.

From his nest on the windowsill, James chirped.

"Go back to sleep." Oliver let his legs fall, and they gave a semi-satisfying _thump _as they hit the mattress. "Don't look at me and my shame."

He'd only meant to do it once, just to try the words out, see how they felt on his tongue. Now here he was, five days in, and his head was no more clear than it was the first time.

Oliver was naive. A bit of a daydreamer, really. This was all just the work of his overactive imagination. Why stress himself out over it?

But what _else _could Len have meant?

Last week, the two of them were where they often were on slow nights: up on the rooftop, swapping stories of how their week had gone and discussing whatever trivial topics came to mind. On that night, Len had presented him with a picture he'd taken of the producer he'd worked with that day: a young man, surely not much older than them, tall and handsome.

_"Beat still, my heart," _Oliver had said.

_"That's what I thought! I was like, damn, are you here to give me a song to sing or steal my heart away?"_

_"So? You plan on asking him out to lunch or something?"_

_"Pfft, nah. I just thought you'd like looking at him too."_

_"Why not? You sound like you have quite the attraction to him. It might be worth a shot."_

_"I just think he's hot. As far as actual attraction, I think you're more—"_

And this was followed by several seconds of violent verbal backspacing, lots of _Please don't take that the wrong way_s. _"I just mean that, you know, if I dated someone I'd wanna know them better. Like I know you. You know?"_

Oliver had nodded, not all too phased. _"That makes sense."_

And it had. The few times they'd discussed romance in-depth, Len had mentioned wanting something serious, something founded on friendship rather than first impressions and physical attraction. A friendship like theirs.

And that was why Len had gotten so flustered when he'd first said that, Oliver reasoned. He only meant he wanted his future partner to be a friend to him like Oliver was. He wasn't trying to imply that he was interested in dating Oliver himself.

...Was he?

That moment of weakness, that one moment that Oliver let himself think maybe Len _was _implying something more, was what led him to where he was now: sulking in bed, frustrated with himself for not knowing.

_I like you._

The words didn't feel right.

But they didn't feel _wrong, _either.

Another chirp sounded beside him, then fluttering, and then a tiny pair of feet landed square on Oliver's forehead. James peered down at him and twittered questioningly.

Oliver sighed.

"I'm wasting my time, James."

What was the point in all of this when he didn't even know for sure that Len liked him?

The answer was obvious, at least to Oliver. No one had ever expressed romantic interest in him. He very much liked that thought, the thought that someone might like him like that.

Above all, the thought that maybe Len, his first and dearest friend, saw him as more than _just_ a friend… it was a pleasant thought.

But Oliver couldn't make himself understand how_ he _felt. And what if it was true? What if Len approached him and confirmed Oliver's suspicions and then needed an answer in return? What would Oliver say?

He didn't know. He'd spent nearly a week trying to figure out what he might say, how he might feel, but he just didn't know.

Maybe that was okay, Oliver tried to convince himself, cooing softly and scratching James beneath his beak. It was only a premonition anyway.

Of course Len would never feel that strongly for him. No one ever had. No one ever would.

_And maybe that's okay._

Once James had gone back to sleep, Oliver reached for his phone on his bedside table, careful not to turn too much and tip James off. This had to end. He had to stop deluding himself. And he knew who could help him with that.

* * *

"I'm guessing your little chat with Mei-chan didn't go as expected?"

Len, forehead pressed into the kitchen table, didn't bother looking up to acknowledge Rin. "Nah, it went fine," he said, popping the last bit of his banana into his mouth. "I'washa goo'talk."

"Which is why you're drowning your sorrows in potassium, I see."

Discarding the peel onto the table, Len felt around blindly for another one. "Nah, she had some good stuff to say." He found what he was looking for and set to work peeling Banana #9. Meiko had been more sympathetic than he'd expected. Still, having to explain his feelings again, go into depth about these things that had to otherwise remain unspoken… it was exhausting.

He heard a _clank_ and felt the table vibrate slightly. Great. Rin had confiscated his bowl. "You're gonna poison yourself if you eat anymore."

"A glorious end, wouldn't it be?"

He was halfway through Banana #9 when he realized just how quiet the room was. He could feel Rin's stare boring into the top of his head, but she wasn't making a sound. He wasn't even sure if she was breathing.

"Alright, _alright._" He looked up and was met with The Look: Rin's arms were crossed over her chest, her chin was tilted up, her gaze was hard and unamused. "What do you want?"

Rin stared down a while longer before she spoke. "I want you to let me help you."

That was never a good idea.

"Help me how?"

Rin pulled out the chair opposite his and plopped into it. "In T-minus thirteen hours, Ollie-kun and I are gonna grab lunch together."

"Cool. Have fun."

"I'm gonna figure out whether or not he feels the same way."

The last bite of Banana #9 was coughed out onto the tabletop before he even had a chance to chew it.

"No." He plucked the fruit end from its landing spot and chewed it into paste between objections. "No no no no no no no,_ no, __**no.**_"

"I'm sick of watching you sulk around and assume you're in a hopeless position when you haven't even bothered figuring out if that's the case or not! If you won't ask him, _someone's_ gotta!"

"Asking him after I've told you not to goes in direct violation of The Code!"

"This is worth breaking The Code for!"

"You— you wouldn't dare!"

"You're right! I wouldn't!" She reached down to the floor and came back up with one of Len's bananas. "Which is why I'm not gonna just up and say it. C'mon, have some faith in the power of subtlety."

Len glowered at her across the table as she shamelessly helped herself to his stash. Subtlety. Yeah. She had all the subtlety of an operatic prima donna in full costume in a convenience store. She'd start out with open-ended questions, and when she inevitably didn't get the answer she wanted, she'd ask it outright.

And then Oliver would know. And then…

"Rin, please don't tell him." He cradled his forehead against his fingertips. "I really don't wanna put that kind of pressure on him. _Please."_

Rin finished the bite she was on before responding. "Look. I know how worried you are. So I've been practicing what I'll say. I'll make sure I'm not too obvious."

"And if he doesn't give you a clear answer?"

"Then I'll suck it up and deal with it."

Len looked back up. Rin was leaned forward on her elbows, palms flat against the table. She wasn't going to let this go.

But he trusted her.

"...Please don't make it too obvious." He leaned back into his chair and sighed heavily. He still didn't want her even bringing it up with Oliver. Even if Rin could pull it off as she promised, what if Oliver caught on? By Rin getting involved, he'd realize that Len's feelings were serious.

Len hadn't meant for them to get this serious. It had just been a crush. A harmless crush.

"Don't worry about it. Rin-nee-sama's gotcha covered."

Len snickered. "Oh no. It's never good when she calls herself 'nee-sama'."

"Oh, no, it'll be perfect, I promise!" Collecting the bowl from the floor, Rin stood and gave Len a salute. "Sleep tight. Next time I see you I'll give you the report!"

Len called after her as she left.

"Can I have my bananas back?"

Rin's middle finger gave him his answer.

* * *

"Does Len like anyone?"

Rin all but slammed her phone against the table and sent Oliver out of his skin. She managed to muffle a noise, just barely, but her pupils were nearly invisible against the backdrop of nikuman-sized irises.

And after a few seconds of gawking at Oliver, she scrambled to recompose herself, glancing back down at her phone as if nothing had happened.

Oliver suddenly felt nauseous.

_Oh no._

He'd invited Rin out to lunch in the hopes that he could put his suspicions in their graves. He'd ask Rin, she'd confirm Len liked someone else or merely liked no one, and that would be that.

This day was not going as he'd planned.

"I dunno," she said. "You know him. He doesn't really tell me a lot about who he likes and all."

No sooner were the words out of her mouth than did she wince so heavily her whole body contracted into itself. That was all the proof he needed that she knew that _he _knew that she was lying through her teeth.

_Oh no._

"How come? He mention someone?" Her eyes cut up at him from over the top of her phone (which she was practically hiding behind now), cut back down just as fast.

_Or do _you _like him?_

The words went unspoken, but Oliver could still hear them, hanging thick in the air.

"Just… curious, I guess."

Rin made another noise — it was supposed to sound casually inquisitive, Oliver guessed, but it sounded more confused, if not panicked. "Well, I'll keep you updated if he tells me anything."

"Okay. Sounds great."

And then the topic was dropped.

Rin's smile, however, stayed right where it was.

* * *

"_Guess who's got some awesome news?!_"

A shrill and undignified scream left the very naked Len's throat as he scrambled for the towel he'd just discarded on the floor. "Can you _knock?!_"

"Can you lock your door?" Rin, unphased by her freshly-showered brother's state of undress, shut the door behind her just as forcefully as she'd opened it. "Ollie-kun likes you too!"

Len nearly dropped his towel again.

"Rin, that… that's so mean." He sat on the opposite side of his bed and pulled the boxers he'd laid out with him so that he could dress in something resembling privacy. "You shouldn't say that."

"Oh come _on. _You really think I'd lie about this?"

Len was shaking so hard he could hardly get his feet through the leg holes. No. She _wouldn't _lie about something like this. Rin was a tease who thrived from getting on his nerves, but she was also fiercely protective of him. She had been there for every crush and heartbreak he'd experienced. She'd endured endless hours of heart-to-hearts and given him a shoulder to cry on whenever he needed it. She'd threatened to rip out one person's throat (and shove a very large item very painfully up a very small orifice) for hurting him once. She knew how much the thought of love meant to him.

She knew how much Oliver meant to him.

"Did he… did he actually say he likes me?"

"No."

A flash of white filled Len's vision, but he wasn't sure if it was anger or shock or disappointment or what.

"But! But, hear me out! He brought it up before I did. He was like 'Hey, does Len like anyone?" And I was like 'I dunno, he hasn't said' and he seemed a little disappointed and got all blushy and said to tell him if I found out. Len, it was all there. He didn't have to say it. I could_ see _it."

No. No way. It couldn't be.

Len pulled himself to his knees to retrieve his night tank from the bed and locked gazes with Rin as he did so. There was no deception in her eyes, no glitter of mischief, nothing. Just a wide, assured smile.

"Len, I really think you've got a chance."

Those were dangerous words.

And starting that night, Len let himself believe them.

* * *

There was no mistaking it.

When they were together, on the rooftop or in the living room or whatever, Oliver would go off about the migratory habits of XYZ species of bird or whatever constellations were in the sky that night. He'd look over mid-sentence, when he was certain the sight he'd catch would be fully candid.

Len would right himself quickly, but not before Oliver saw the way he rested his cheek in his palm, the gentle smile that gave his face the softest glow. And try though he might, he couldn't blink away the stars in his eyes quite fast enough.

Oliver was good at pretending he hadn't noticed, but it always made him feel a little dizzy.

There wasn't much room left for doubt. Len's feelings for him were romantic.

"I like you too."

"I'd love to go out with you."

"I feel the same way."

"Let's be together."

It didn't feel right. It didn't feel wrong.

Oliver muffled a frustrated scream into his pillow.

Why couldn't he just feel the same way? Now that he knew someone loved him — now that he knew that someone was his best friend, his favorite quasihuman— why could he not confidently say he loved him back?

Didn't he owe Len that much? He'd done so much for Oliver, stuck with him from day one, helped him feel truly welcome and happy and cherished. The least Oliver could do was love him in return.

But he was too worthless to even do that much, wasn't he?

Oliver wasn't sure if the stress of the situation had driven him to this point or if he'd forgotten to take his medications that morning or if his brain just hated him, but the Tuesday after his conversation with Rin, he was listless. Unmotivated. So much more so than usual.

It was his first depressive episode since before the whole ordeal had begun. So for that evening, he decided to set his pride and frustrations aside and seek out comfort from the one he always found it in.

"Did anything trigger it?" Len asked once Oliver explained his situation. The adults had gone out drinking and Rin and Miku and Gumi were having their monthly girl's night, so it was just the two of them on the living room couch. The quiet was strange, yet Oliver was happy for it.

"I don't know." Oliver stared into his lap, where he twiddled his thumbs together. "I just kind of want to disappear, that's all."

He fought off a wince when he felt Len's hand on his shoulder. It was a kind gesture, far more kind than he deserved.

"I know. But things are gonna be okay. Until then, is there anything I can do to help?"

Oliver shrugged. "Just… stay with me for a bit, I guess."

_Stay with me so you can pine after me while I leave you hanging indefinitely, because that's the kind of friend I am I guess._

"Oliver? Would it be alright if I gave you a hug?"

Oliver's breath caught in his throat.

It wasn't the question that caught him off guard; they'd hugged before. It wasn't uncommon. But to Len, he had always been Ollie-kun. That was the first time he'd heard his full name on Len's voice.

He nodded without realizing it.

Len was a very touchy-feely person, and when he didn't know what to say, he would offer an embrace instead. On nights when his depression was taking its toll on him, Oliver had become accustomed to consoling side-hugs and the occasional strong, full-bodied hug.

This hug was neither.

Len didn't pull him tight like he sometimes did when Oliver needed comfort, and he didn't pat him on the back like he did during a casual hug. His palms rested against Oliver's back, purposefully, yet softly; Len pressed his cheek against his head and just held him like that for God-knew-how-many breathless moments. Oliver wasn't sure if what he was hearing was his own blood rushing in his ears or Len's pulse racing against him. Maybe it was both.

When he pulled back, he looked dazed, his face the brightest shade of red Oliver had ever seen. He smiled and muttered something about how he hoped that had helped and then excused himself to get Oliver a glass of water.

Long after he was out of sight, his warmth lingered on Oliver's clothes and skin, penetrated down into his bones. He didn't move until Len returned. He didn't want that warmth escaping him. It was pleasant, the gentlest and most assuring sensation he'd ever felt. It made him feel anxious and content in equal measure, and it followed him to his bed, lulling him into a blissful, restful sleep.

Was that it? Was that what love felt like?

Because, well... he wanted to feel it more.

* * *

Rin was right.

Holy shit, Rin was _right._

It was subtle at first, almost indistinguishable. The night of Oliver's episode, he'd stayed close to Len's side until he was ready to retire to his room. Len hadn't thought much of it. On his bad nights, Oliver sought out touch. It didn't mean anything.

But during the nights that followed, it continued. Oliver would voice some kind of excuse — _Hey, check out this bird meme I found! It reminds me of James so much! _— and he would scoot as close to Len as he could, their hips and legs and thighs touching. And then he wouldn't move again until they both got up.

They'd linger outside of their rooms for nearly an hour every night, chasing any rabbit they could find just to keep talking. Oliver would fiddle with his hands and giggle and blush, and when both finally decided their desire to sleep outweighed their will to keep the conversation going, Oliver was every bit as hesitant as Len felt to leave.

Len and Rin managed to have a day off on the same day, so Oliver came along with them to wreak havoc upon their small town (if one can call a casual get-together of teens "wreaking havoc"). While at the park, Rin had run off to feed the ducks at the pond, leaving the two boys alone on a bench.

"Isn't Rin afraid of ducks?" Oliver asked.

"Not most ducks. It's just that these ducks hate her and she hates them back."

Sure enough, Rin walked straight past the pond and out of sight.

Len looked at Oliver just as he did the same.

He knew. He knew just as well as Len did why Rin had run off.

And he smiled, a rosy blush dusting his cheek and nose.

Rin was right.

Rin was _right._

But Len didn't want to press the issue. Not yet. Oliver had always been shy and uncertain. If this really _was _going to go beyond friendship, Len wanted to wait until Oliver was ready.

He just prayed he wouldn't have to wait too long.

* * *

Oliver had been thinking too hard. That was his problem. He'd been trying to use logic to make sense of an emotion.

Being with Len felt as natural as hitting a mid G. He loved the closeness, the contentment, _everything. _He even found an odd sort of joy in the sadness of being alone when a busy day kept them apart.

As he went about his days, he began daydreaming again, he realized. Daydreaming of walking hand-in-hand with Len, laughing and glowing in the attention given to them by passersby. Len wrapping an arm around him, pulling him close, nuzzling his cheek. Len cradling his face, kissing him tenderly in the faint evening light.

It sounded so wonderful.

This was it, wasn't it? This was love.

So… why not?

He'd confess the next time they were on the roof together, he decided. The rooftop was where they'd shared their most intimate moments. What better place to launch the beginning of something more?

That night came. They settled on the rooftop together, hip-to-hip.

And Oliver's mind took over once more.

Was he really ready? This was a big plunge to take. Relationships require lots of work, after all. But he wanted this. He wanted to be held and kissed and showered in words of adoration.

But what about the days where that didn't happen? What if they disagreed? What if they fought? If they took this step, then there would be more at stake than just their friendship.

But if there was love, wouldn't that be a risk worth taking?

The argument raged in his head even as they got up and stretched their limbs and made their way back downstairs. He willed himself to stop thinking, to just remember how happy being with Len made him. How happy being loved made him.

He wanted to be loved.

So why not?

At their doors, the words wouldn't come to him like they should have. He wanted to give Len a proper confession, but looking into those cerulean eyes drained his courage. So before he could think too hard about what he was doing, he closed his eye and pulled himself against Len.

Being so close, he could feel the rush of heat that radiated from Len's body from the action. (Or maybe it was just him.) His right palm found the small of Len's back; the left, the top of his spine. The side of his face he rested against Len's neck, and in that ear he could hear the _thud-thud-thud _of Len's pulse. (Or maybe it was his own heartbeat ringing in his ears.) A quiet gasp filled the air around them — that was definitely Len. Oliver felt his chest expand against his in time to the noise.

...It felt right.

"Len?" Although he spoke quietly, his voice still cracked.

"Yeah?" Len's response wasn't much louder, was no more collected.

Oliver gulped.

_I love you._

The first syllable passed his lips when his inner voice whispered its rebuttal.

_Or do I just like the thought of being loved?_

A suffocating silence fell over them.

"...I'm listening," Len assured. He met Oliver halfway, returned the embrace he'd initiated. His heartbeat was so present, so deafening, reverberating against Oliver's eardrums.

Would Oliver feel any differently if anyone besides Len loved him? _Of course, _he wanted to say. Len was his best friend. Of course it wouldn't be the same with anyone else. But what if Oliver had another friend besides Len? Another boy that he was close to, a boy that loved him? Even if he had Len, and if Len's feelings weren't romantic, would Oliver still love Len, or would he default to whichever boy loved him?

He couldn't do this.

Why not?

_Because I don't know._

"I… I'm cold." He chuckled, a humorless _heh_. "I got cold outside. You're warm."

Though it was night, the dark roof tiles had soaked up the mid-late-summer rays and kept the two of them toasty while they'd been up there. It wasn't much cooler inside.

"...Oh."

The embrace felt heavy and uncomfortable. Oliver pulled away, looked down at his feet.

_I'm sorry._

"Well, I'm glad I could warm you up! Honestly I was… kinda cold too. So, um, thank you."

His words were nonchalant, but his voice was strained.

Oliver looked up, and immediately he wished he hadn't.

The forced smile did little to hide it. Etched into Len's face was a look Oliver had seen many times before, yet a look he'd never expected to see in _that_ face, not directed at him.

Disappointment.

Oliver wanted to take it all back, throw himself back into Len's arms, feed him words of love until it all became senseless babble but he didn't know, he didn't _know, _he _didn't know _and what if it was all a lie? But what if he meant it and just needed that final push? _But what if it was a lie?_

He quickly excused himself. Whether he said goodnight or not he didn't know, he just turned and rushed to his room and waited against the closed door.

In the hallway, Len's door clicked shut.

He was disappointed. Len was disappointed. Once more Oliver had left him waiting. And this time Len hadn't even tried to disguise how that made him feel.

Couldn't he have just said it? He'd almost said it. So what if he wasn't one-hundred percent sure? Why didn't he just say it?

All this time, had Oliver been leading him on? Was that all this was? He'd given Len exactly what he wanted and then dropped it at the last possible second and now… Now, he...

Oliver's sight went blurry. His legs shook beneath him and he felt dizzy, as though he was caught in the epicenter of an earthquake. He finally gave up holding his weight and he slid down the door and that was where he stayed for the rest of the night, crying into his folded arms.

He really was a worthless excuse for a friend.


	12. The Chronicles Begin, Part 2

Oliver had never drank, but he decided that the headache he woke up with was akin to the worst of hangovers. Crying on and off for five hours straight, as it turns out, can have some pretty nasty consequences.

Sunlight was just starting to peek through his curtains, entirely too bright and not at all helping his situation. It was going to be a hot day. Hot and sticky and humid. A perfect day to just… stay in bed.

His bed was soft and inviting after being on the floor all night, offering some relief to his aching back and backend. He stared a while longer at the window as his tense muscles began to relax. Yeah. Today was a good day to drop off the face of the earth.

James had refused to come in the night before, opting instead to sleep in the warmth of the garden. Oliver fished through his pocket for his phone. He could text Len right quick, ask him to make sure that James was—

Oliver had never been stabbed, either, but he was sure that whatever he felt in his stomach when he saw Len's name was akin to being run through with a wakizashi.

He texted Luka instead, and then he hid beneath the covers and pretended for a while that nothing else existed.

* * *

"Len-Len, you look terrible," Gumi oh-so-helpfully observed.

"Gee, morning to you too." Len's fingers weren't cooperating with him. He had stolen an orange from Rin's stash in the hopes that a bit of petty theft would help him feel better, but his nails glided right over the thick, porous skin, refusing him access to the tangy fruit within.

This was what he got for letting his guard down. The passive-aggressive wrath of the fruit gods.

A single finger reached beneath his chin and lifted his head, tearing his focus from the orange to the deep blue, mildly concerned eyes of Luka. Before he could inquire as to what she was doing, she pressed the back of her other hand to his forehead, then his left cheek. Len's nose twitched. Her fingers smelled sweet, like bird seed.

"You don't feel feverish." She prodded at his neck to feel for any swollen tonsils before taking a step back. "Maybe you should call in just to be safe, though."

Len grunted, reengaging in his effort to peel his breakfast. "I just didn't sleep," he mumbled. "Other'n that, I'm fine."

_Except for the crushing guilt of dealing out crushing guilt, but, y'know, que sera sera._

Last night was going to be the night, he'd thought. Before they parted ways, Oliver had embraced him — no, _held _him — what few words he spoke quiet, cautious, but backed with purpose. Len had jumped to his own conclusion and let go of his carefully guarded mannerisms.

_You can say it. It's okay. I love you too._

But Oliver had backed out at the last moment. He lied about what his intentions were, and Len knew he was lying, and Len knew that Oliver knew that Len knew that he was lying. And Len had been, well… disappointed.

_Please don't. Please say it. I wanna hear it. I don't wanna wait anymore._

It stung and made his head pound and in the confusion of the moment, Len forgot to put his walls back up.

Oliver had seen his disappointment. The way his face fell, the way his eye widened and filled with tears, the sheer apologetic sorrow that darkened his face like a shadow before he turned tail and retreated to his room without so much as a "goodnight" — it was all burned into the backs of Len's eyelids. Which was why he'd spent all night distracting himself with his phone and his DAWs and his guitar and anything that would keep him from falling asleep and seeing that image so vividly again.

Maybe he shouldn't have been so worried. But Oliver had been on the receiving end of disappointment and judgement and what-all in the past. That was a major part of why he'd moved halfway across the world. To escape that. And then he saw something unwelcomely familiar in Len's face and suddenly he was back in England, face-to-face with everything he'd thought he'd escaped.

That was how Len saw it, anyway. Oliver absorbed negativity like a sponge and let even the most minor transgressions torment him. And in a moment of impetuous selfishness, Len, the first person Oliver had ever fully trusted, contributed to that.

God, he was so fucking _stupid._

Waiting sucked, sure. But it wasn't a big deal. Len was more than willing to wait. Oliver had tried to initiate something he wasn't ready for and he had every right to back out of it as such. Had Len not been so remiss in letting Oliver see his petty frustration, he would have been over it in a matter of minutes. It really wasn't a big deal at all.

And at several points throughout the night, he had drafted texts to Oliver saying as much. Attempted to, anyway.

_Hey, I'm sorry about that. I just didn't want to put pressure on_

_Are you alright? I promise I'm not upset. It was just_

_Everything okay? You seemed like you were_

But each text was erased before they saw the light of day. Nothing sounded right.

Four times Len had left his room and stood across from Oliver's door, trying to find the courage to knock, to look him in the eye and say he was sorry, it was okay, he'd messed up but none of it was Oliver's fault. But each time he slunk back into his room and threw himself into another meaningless task and let the whole situation stagnate.

Calling out for the day sounded nice. Surely by now he was too worn out to dream. Maybe that would give him a few precious hours without guilt.

"Moody producer," he said at last. "She'd kill me if I missed."

Out of pity or annoyance, Luka finally took the orange from him and worked it open. "I could vouch for you. It might be for the best that you stay in, in case you have whatever Oliver's got."

Abruptly, on top of the sleep deprivation, Len felt as though he'd chugged the household's entire coffee supply.

"Oliver?" He tried to keep a cap on it, but suddenly he was too jittery and his head was swimming violently and he could hardly even hear what he was saying. This wasn't good. This was not good. "W-w-w-what's wrong with Ollie-kun?"

"I don't know." The orange finally unpeeled, Luka wiped her thumb over her lower lip, licking the juice it left behind. "He texted me earlier this morning and said he wasn't feeling well. He's planning on staying in bed for the day, so he wanted me to feed James. That's all I really know."

Len did his best to mutter a couple of "Okay, okay"s as he reclaimed his orange from her hands and stumbled in the general direction of the front door.

He did this, didn't he? He'd done this. This was totally his fault. He'd gotten impatient and put an enormous pressure on Oliver's shoulders and it had driven him to a literal state of unwellness. He'd done the _one __**fucking thing**_ he'd been trying to avoid this whole time. He'd messed up. Maybe irreparably.

Luka stopped him, grabbing onto his shoulders from behind. "Yeah, you're staying home today. And if you say no, I'm getting Meiko involved, so it's best to just give up now."

Len didn't really remember going back upstairs or sprawling out on his mattress, making the vague decision that maybe he could lay down long enough to appease Luka. By the time he came back to his senses, the puddle of drool on his pillow informed him that he'd been out of it for much longer than he'd anticipated.

Caught in the limbo of the waking and unconscious worlds, he stared at his alarm clock. He'd thrown on some fresh clothes at around 7:00 and had been downstairs for maybe ten minutes, and now it was 11:32. He'd slept for just over four hours. Yet his head felt remarkably clear, and he didn't feel as though he was on the precipice of a panic attack any longer.

So now that he'd panicked and passed out, maybe he could think. Logically.

Oliver knew Len, knew him more than anyone else aside from Rin and Meiko and maybe Miku. Surely he knew that Len never held onto negative emotions. That whatever Len had felt last night, it hadn't lasted more than a few minutes. Yeah. He knew that.

And Oliver hadn't been sick before, not that he'd seen. There were days when he'd lock himself in his room and only communicate via text because his depression was kicking his butt, but if James wasn't in there with him, Oliver would come out to check on him at least once. He wouldn't assign that task to anyone else unless he was _really _ill. And none of his episodes, no matter how severe, had ever driven him to that point. On top of that, he was pretty frail, so the assumption that an illness could leave him bedbound wasn't an absurd assumption to make.

Yeah. This wasn't anything Len had caused. Oliver might have been upset, but then sickness pushed that to the back of his mind. He was probably fast asleep right now, flushed with fever but otherwise peaceful, yesterday's mishap forgotten, or at least forgiven.

The thought gave Len something resembling peace of mind, so he decided to stick to it.

He smiled to himself suddenly.

A few months ago, he'd discussed a scenario just like this with Oliver. _"You're gonna be sick in bed having the worst day ever," _he'd started, and quickly followed it with his proposed antidote. An antidote that, now, might work to solve more than just a bad day. Something small, but meaningful.

He sat up slowly enough to accommodate his lightly throbbing head. Breathed in. Exhaled.

There was still a part of himself that couldn't be convinced Oliver wasn't still upset. This would put that to rest. This would be the perfect way to break the tension, show that there were no hard feelings, that everything was alright between them.

He hoped.

* * *

A knock on his door woke Oliver from a dreamless sleep at half past noon.

"Come in," he called.

No one came in.

With a heavy sigh, he dragged himself from the safety of his bed and trudged to the door, cracking it open carefully.

There was no one on the other side.

There was, however, something laying on the floor. A tray of food.

Oliver knelt to collect and examine it. It wasn't all that fancy. A cup of water, a bowl of green tea (no… matcha, the color was too solid to be plain green tea), and—

And a stack of crêpes. A little burnt around the edges, drizzled unevenly with melted caramel, and topped with banana slices of varying thicknesses.

His heart jumped into his throat then sunk just as quickly into his pelvis, and he almost put the tray back. But his stomach protested, as he'd skipped dinner last night and breakfast this morning, so reluctantly he brought it into his room.

Two months ago, Oliver made dinner for the household, a fairly modest offering of a few English dishes and several of his favorite desserts. Len, the second-worst cook in the house (just barely above Gumi), had been enraptured, and he begged Oliver to teach him in his ways.

_"Well, I… alright." _He wasn't much of a teacher, never had been, but he couldn't find it in his heart to say no. _"What would you like to start with?"_

_"What about… ooh, what about those super thin pancakes? Those were really good! I wanna learn to make those like a true Englishman would!"_

_"I mean, they're technically French, so…"_

_"Eh. They taste good. Teach me anyway."_

It took several days and half the contents of the household fire extinguisher, but eventually Len got the hang of crêpe-making. In spite of the mess and the wasted materials and the smell of smoke that lingered in the kitchen for weeks afterwards, the memory quickly became one of Oliver's favorites.

He never wanted to forget the sight of Len, face powdered with flour and arms and hair flecked with extinguishing foam and sleeves singed, laughing sheepishly and promising the next attempt wouldn't be so disastrous. The intense concentration as he handled the thin dough with a pair of spatulas and uttered some cross of a mantra and a prayer that he wouldn't drop them again. The utter glee that he vocalized loudly when he finally presented to Oliver his first decently-prepared plate. Through the calamity and the destruction and the half-serious threats of eviction spat their way, they'd laughed until their stomachs hurt and hummed and sang as they cooked and cleaned, and if ever Oliver felt he had a place in the world, it was then, lost in carefree and domestic joy alongside Len.

_"You know what? I'm gonna surprise you one of these days," _Len had said as they began their third deep-cleaning of the kitchen walls, still darkened with soot in spite of their best efforts. _"You're gonna be sick in bed and having the worst day ever, then I'm gonna burst in and bring you a tray full of the most delicious crêpes you've ever eaten and make it all better!"_

And they_ were _delicious. The best batch Len had ever made. And suddenly Oliver's room felt more vast than Royal Albert Hall, and there he was center-stage, a deafening silence and overwhelming emptiness his only audience.

The tears that he was so sure had run dry the night before returned with a vengeance.

He set the empty tray back in the hallway when he was done and cried himself back to sleep.

* * *

Oliver was sick in bed the next day, too.

_Nothing to worry about, see? _the more self-centered part of Len's brain told him. He had returned an hour after laying out Oliver's lunch the day before and found every last bite eaten, every last drink drunk. He'd pressed his ear against the door and listened for any activity, but he heard nothing. The poor thing must have fallen asleep again as soon as he'd had his fill.

He'd accepted the peace offering, yet he was holed up again today, so whatever ailed him really did have nothing to do with Len. Nothing to worry about.

_Except the fact that he's been too sick to even talk to anyone for two days straight, _his more rational inner voice pointed out. Even Luka hadn't heard from him since yesterday morning. This was no cause for celebration. No longer worried about the _cause _of Oliver's state, he was now engulfed with concern for his actual state. _Which you should have been from the beginning, you self-absorbed prick._

No matter. His confidence was back, so he picked up his phone to text Oliver and inquire directly as to how he was doing.

Len had a bad habit of hoarding his messages. His last conversation with Oliver was still there when he pulled up his name.

**O:** _Meet me up on the roof at 20:00?_

**L:** _Yup! Should be home by then_

_Assuming a certain someone doesn't keep me late yelling at me for_ _not being able to maintain a high A for three minutes straight orz_

**O: **_Did you try reminding her that you're quasihuman, not superhuman?_

**L: **_Good luck getting THAT through to her._

_So if I get home and I can't talk, that's what happened wwww_

**O:** _Haha! Best of luck_

_I'll be up here when you get home, just come find me_

A few hours after that conversation, they'd been standing in front of their doors, delaying their goodnights. Then Oliver had pulled him close and… thanked him for being warm.

Len's fingers hovered over the phone's keyboard, but he kept rereading the exchange. It was so mundane. But that was why it felt so special, looking back at it. It had only been two days, but having such a simple conversation with Oliver now seemed like such an impossible thing and he… he missed it. He missed _him._

The thoughts he'd been doing so good at suppressing came rushing back.

_He always comes straight to you for everything. You're the first one he seeks out when he feels like shit. But yesterday he went to Luka instead and today he's sticking it out alone. Even when he's at his worst he'll tell you, but he hasn't this time. Why do you think that is?_

He stared down at Oliver's last text, not really reading the words so much as feeling them.

_"Just come find me."_

_Why do you think that is, Len?_

He put the phone back down. Stood up. Let his feet lead him to the door across the hall.

The question repeated itself again as he knocked. He didn't acknowledge it. He couldn't afford to acknowledge it. This had nothing to do with that. His best friend was sick and hurting and suffering. Couldn't he set his feelings and his insecurities aside for all of two seconds and just _be there for him?_

There was no response, no squeaking of bedsprings or pattering of feet or "Be right there!". Len bit his lower lip and raised his fist to knock again when the door finally cracked open.

"...Len?" Oliver's voice was rough, as if… well, as if he hadn't spoken in two days.

And he looked the part, too. His hair stuck nearly straight up on the left side of his head, an indicator that he hadn't left his pillow very much in the past 30 hours. Len would have found it adorable if he didn't look so out of it. He looked up at Len in a daze, as though he were gazing upon an apparition.

For that matter, he looked just as scared as one might expect a person to look when seeing a ghost.

Len's stomach clenched. He looked _scared._

_No. No, total coincidence. Has to be._

"Hey." Len was half-shocked his voice was as clear as it was. "Still sick?"

Oliver's lips parted, then he glanced down, hands tugging at the hem of his wrinkled shirt. "K...kind of? I'm, um, I'm… feeling better today. Just…" He shrugged, a subtle movement of his shoulders that Len wouldn't have noticed were he not standing so close.

Even after he trailed off, Oliver wouldn't look at him. His chest rose and fell rapidly, shallowly, and… was he shaking? Yup. He was shaking.

Len gulped.

_Stop kidding yourself, Len._

"I need to talk to you." The words tumbled out before he could even think them over. Oliver's eye widened and his shoulders tensed in surprise, but he still didn't look up.

"I mean," Len corrected, tempted to take a step back. Oliver hadn't looked this uncomfortable — around him, no less — since they'd first known each other. Since Len was little more to Oliver than an overbearing stranger.

"I'd… like to talk to you. If you're up for it." Though in truth, he half-hoped Oliver would say no. He didn't want to talk about it. Surely he'd just dig himself deeper. _But not talking is what got you here in the first place, so it looks like you're screwed either way. _"And it's nothing, like, super urgent, so it can wait until you're feeling better. If you wanna talk. You don't have to if you don't—"

"I'd love to talk." Oliver's response was quiet, and a smile tugged at the corners of his lips, though it looked entirely inauthentic. Len wanted to make a joke or punch his shoulder or do _something _to break the tension, to make Oliver smile again. _Please smile. I promise it's okay. Please._

In a few more hesitant exchanges, the two agreed to convene on the rooftop at 20:00 once more. Oliver looked back up at Len long enough to smile another fake smile and offer a "See you then", and then the door closed and they were half a world apart again.

Len's facade dropped the second the door clicked shut. He backed against the opposite wall and buried his face in his hands and groaned.

How could he say he loved Oliver when he'd done this to him?

_You never deserved him anyway._

* * *

Oliver didn't want to be here.

No, scratch that: he wanted to be literally anywhere but here.

But he'd backed himself into a corner. He'd shut himself off for two days and worried Len so strongly that he finally closed their distance. He couldn't have just refused Len's offer. What was he supposed to say? _No thank you, I feel so guilty for leading you on that it's driven me to physical illness, so I'd rather not be anywhere near you for a while?_

So back up on the rooftop with Len he sat, the silence just as suffocating as it had been two nights earlier.

He could do it. He could say that he was still feeling bad and needed to get back inside. Len wouldn't object. He knew as much.

But he couldn't just keep avoiding Len. That wouldn't fix anything.

But he didn't know what else to do.

As though having heard his thoughts, Len cleared his throat.

"I'm sorry I dragged you up here. Are you sure you're feeling okay enough?"

His voice carried the warm and authentic concern Oliver had become accustomed to. There was nothing odd in his tone like there had been earlier, no false assurances or desperation. Okay. That was good. Maybe they could just… pretend nothing had happened. That was better than hiding from Len for the rest of his life.

"Yeah," he said. "Don't worry. It just kind of snuck up on me. I think I'll be back in tip-top shape by tomorrow."

"Hey, take your time! You can't rush healing."

When Oliver looked over, Len was leaned back on his hands, giving him an understanding smile.

He looked tired. His normally flawless complexion was riddled with signs of fatigue. Dark circles colored the skin beneath his eyes and aged him a good decade in the worst way possible.

"Have you been feeling unwell?" Oliver chanced. _Am I the reason you look like you haven't slept in a week?_

Len chuckled, a light noise that was carried away on the summer breeze. "Do I really look that bad? Miku-chan chased after me with a sheet mask and a jade roller earlier. I told her she was being dramatic, but…"

"No, no, you just… you look exhausted. I'm worried, that's all."

Len stretched his arms above his head. "Yeah. I feel okay. Just haven't gotten much sleep."

Oliver's heart floated down into his stomach, slowly and gently like a goldfinch feather. "Why's that?"

Every fiber of his being hoped that Len would give a generic answer. _Writer's block on a new song, the producer I'm working with has me up late, _something like that. But Len's smile faltered and he looked down, then away, and Oliver knew he was about to tell the truth.

"I've felt guilty, I guess."

Uneasiness settled in the back of Oliver's throat. Or maybe he was about to throw up. "Guilty for what?" he asked, like the idiot he was.

Len exhaled heavily before he spoke again. "I, uh, I noticed that you were… kinda upset. The other night. And I just… I wanted to apologize. For not checking on you." He shrugged. "I know I should have but I thought… I dunno. I was thinking maybe you needed some time to yourself? But I should have at least texted you or something, y'know, like, 'Hey, you doing alright?' or… But I didn't, and then you got sick, and I thought maybe it was my fault."

It was. It _was _his fault. But that was one fact Oliver was willing to lie about.

"No, it's not your fault!" He could have left it at that, but Oliver, stupid, _stupid _Oliver, just had to go on. "I've felt guilty all this time as well."

Len looked back at him now. Written in his face was shock and… fear? Was that fear?

"Why do_ you _feel guilty?" He didn't even try to pass his words off with a laugh or a smile or anything. His fear — yes, it was most certainly fear — was laid bare before Oliver. "Look, I— I promise it's no big deal, I have tomorrow off and I can sleep in and…"

For a while, Oliver met Len's gaze, his mouth moving wordlessly. Len knew what he was talking about. He owed it to Len to at least say as much. But he couldn't. He couldn't say what he so needed to say.

_I'm sorry._

Len broke off the gaze with a series of heavy blinks. Turning his focus back to the treetops, he pulled his knees into his chest.

"I… I knew I should have talked to you. I'm so sorry. I just…" He shook his head, stumbling over a few nonsense syllables. "I wanted to believe it wasn't… Like, everything's okay, but I should have…"

Now Oliver was confused again. Was he referring to the truth or to the lie? "W-what do you mean?"

Len didn't respond right away. He pulled his knees tighter to himself, clung to them like a child to a security blanket.

Oliver hoped desperately that it was a trick of the light making Len's eyes look watery.

"...All of this," he said at last. "I made you upset. I'm so sorry. I didn't want to pressure you and then this happened and…" He took in a deep breath, though it didn't seem to do much for him. "I… I'm guessing you… you know. Right? How I…"

Oliver found himself clinging to his knees as well. He'd seen Len vulnerable before. But never like _this_.

"...Yes." He said it so quietly that he wasn't sure if Len had heard him at first. The silence that followed backed up that thought. But he wasn't about to say it again.

Just as Oliver was sure his lungs were about to collapse from lack of oxygen, Len spoke again.

"Be honest with me, then." His tone was even, yet flat. "Have I been misinterpreting all of this?"

No words came out. Oliver wasn't sure they would even if he tried. And Len took his silence as an answer.

Slowly, Len nodded. "So you, um… You don't actually…"

Bile sat on the back of Oliver's tongue. He wanted to run away — make a dash for the door and escape inside, maybe fling himself from the roof. "N-no, that's not it! It's— I mean…"

Len smiled, a smile so blank and forced Oliver wasn't sure if it could even count as one. "Hey, no, it's okay. It's my fault for, uh, for thinking that… for looking too far into it. You don't…" The blank smile stayed, even as he held his knees so tight his arms shook and turned white. "You don't have to lie anymore. It's alright."

Oliver felt so weak, so helpless, so utterly useless. He wanted to say something, _anything _to make it better — it wasn't a lie. None of it was a lie. He _did _feel the same way but did he really? Did he really? Even if it was, couldn't he just go along with it?

Finally, Len took in another deep breath. A shudder ran its course through his limbs. And he squeezed his eyes shut, but not before the first tears fell.

"_I'm sorry,_" he hissed, digging his nails into the skin of his knees. "_Gimme a minute._"

Maybe Oliver should have stayed in his room. It was better than watching Len fight to regain control of himself, fight to keep his emotions bottled safely away, fight against the hurt Oliver had given him.

"Please don't cry." The request was whimpered uselessly. "Len, I… I didn't mean to hurt you. I'm so sorry…"

A stinging in the back of his eye, all too familiar after the past few days, forced Oliver to stare down at his knuckles, which he stuffed into his lap. He just wanted to disappear. He wanted close his eye and blink out of existence once and for all.

He'd done this. He'd planted that kernel of hope into Len's mind and spent all this time nurturing it into something tangible, only to uproot it all, just because he was too much of a coward to say three stupid syllables.

So what if it was a lie? Even if it was, who would it hurt? How could it hurt more than this?

"Oliver?"

He had to blink a few times to clear his vision when he looked up. When he could see decently again, he was met with a gaze of icy blue, familiar, but so, so hard to look into at the moment. Mostly because there was no anger or disappointment or _anything _he should have seen in that gaze, just sadness and understanding.

"I'm sorry," Len said again. "I never meant for any of this to happen."

"I didn't either."

"I know." He dabbed at his eyes with his sleeve. "I guess once I got the idea in my head I kinda dropped the subtlety. And I didn't even have anything to back that idea up except Rin, and even she wasn't one-hundred percent sure, so, y'know. That's on me. I never should have put you in this situation."

Oliver shook his head. "I never meant to hurt you."

"I know," Len repeated. "But I hurt you too. Please don't beat yourself up, okay?"

Oliver, again, chose silence to an answer.

Another tear fell down Len's cheek, and he quickly wiped it away.

"Look," he said, but Oliver looked back down instead. He didn't want to look. He couldn't look anymore. Luckily, Len hadn't meant it literally, and he continued on. "I… I really don't want anything to change. Y'know? I don't want this to… B-but, I know that this is kinda… I mean, if you need some space for a while, then… I won't blame you. But I don't wanna lose you. Not over something like this."

Space. That was the first and last thing Oliver wanted. He wanted to run downstairs and never have to face Len again just as much as he wanted to pull Len close and feed him whatever words he could form.

"In other words," Len said, "you can go back now if you want. And I'll keep my distance. Then when you're ready, just let me know and I'll… I'll be here. I just…" He huffed briefly through his nostrils, and when Oliver glanced back up, he saw Len looking out at the treetops again, cheek stained with another horrible tear. "Oliver, can we still be friends?"

The question was so fragile, delivered with the care and cautious hopefulness of a fledgling standing on the edge of its nest, prepared to take its first step off.

Something in Oliver clicked. He still felt dizzy and nauseous, he still wanted to cry, he still wanted to disappear. But a budding bloom of courage began to open somewhere deep inside of him. He was done with tears. He was done with running away. He was done with being afraid of his dearest friend, afraid of his own emotions.

They'd hurt each other.

Len was trying to fix his wrongs.

The least Oliver could do was make that attempt too.

"What kind of a question is that?" An urge overcame him, an urge to reach out and wipe that tear from Len's cheek. "I don't make friends easily, so once I make them they're stuck with me for good."

He didn't get a chance to act on that urge — though something told him he wouldn't have done so anyway, he wasn't _that _courageous — as Len swiped at his face and made a startled noise. But the answer was enough to make him smile, if only a bit.

"Really?" His smile widened, and Oliver finally found the strength to smile back. Len's joy was infectious. He hadn't realized until now just how badly he needed it. "Ollie-kun, that… Oh my God, that's literally all I want. Thank you. Thank you so much."

Oliver wasn't sure why, but that wasn't enough for him. Len deserved more than just a promise that there would be no animosity between them. He… well, he deserved the world. And even if Oliver couldn't give him that much, he could at least offer more.

"Come on," he urged, scooting to properly face Len. "There's got to be something else I can do for you. You offered to give me space for as long as I needed. What can I offer you?"

Len looked him over, the most adorably dumbfounded look on his face, his lips parted into a tiny _o _. He was about to refuse, insist that he couldn't ask for more, but Oliver smiled brighter and tacked a "Please" onto his question.

So Len shut his mouth and mulled it over, and this time the silence didn't feel nearly as terrible.

"Can I ask you to tell me something?" he finally requested.

"I think I can manage that." Oliver crept closer, and his body relaxed, as though it didn't realize what was happening and was only happy to be close to Len again, after so long. "What do you want me to say?"

Len followed suit, and in seconds they were facing each other, legs crossed, knees almost touching. Oliver wanted nothing more but to close the distance, press into the warmth of Len's skin, but he instead maintained that distance and let him finish.

"Can you, um… rip the band-aid off? So to speak?" Len shrugged, what looked like the beginnings of a grimace twisted his face, but his smile stayed in place. It was pained, but it was still every bit as authentic. "I need to hear it. I'm _ready _to hear it. So please just…"

Oliver knew what he was about to ask. The request was barely out of his mouth when Oliver jumped in, their sentences finishing together.

"Tell me you don't feel the same way about me."

"I can't."

The response was automatic. Oliver hadn't even been able to consider his answer before it was out in the open.

In his head, Oliver stood over a smaller version of himself — or maybe he was assuming the role of God, berating the stupid mistake of a boy below Him — beating him with a bundle of sticks. _There. You've said it. Now say the rest before you wimp out again, you imbecile!_

"I can't," he continued before Len could get a word in, "because I don't _not _feel the same way. I don't…" He tapped against the roof tiles, forcing out whatever semi-coherent phrases he could manage. "I don't know how I feel about you. I like you and I like being _with _you, and I really like the thought of being more, but I don't know for certain if those feelings are romantic and exclusively towards you or if I just want a relationship for the sake of one. And if it really _is _that last one that wouldn't be fair to you, so I don't… want to promise something I can't give you."

Time felt frozen. Len goggled at him, unblinking, disbelieving. The air around them felt dense and weighed down on him almost painfully.

Well. It had sounded much more complicated in his head.

"...I'm sorry." He stuffed his hands into his lap and looked down at them, feeling suddenly lightheaded. "I know that's not much of an answer, but… that's what I've got."

He counted the seconds as they ticked by — one, two, three, four — and finally, the tense air was cracked.

"It's a perfect answer."

The pain wasn't completely gone from Len's smile, but it was overshadowed by something brighter and more powerful still — hope, reigned in but very much there.

"I mean, I won't get my hopes up, I promise," he elaborated. "Whatever you end up deciding, as long as we can stay friends, I'll be happy. But it's nice to actually know what's going on. So I'm happy with that answer."

Oliver's jaw began to ache. Smiling so much after two days of frowning was surprisingly painful, but he didn't care. "I'll do my best to give you a proper answer anyway," he promised. "It just… it might take a while. I might leave you waiting."

"Hey, you're worth waiting for."

The moment the words were out of his mouth, Len turned at least three different shades of pink, and he stuttered something about Oliver taking his time as though the words could drown out what he'd just said. Still, those words settled pleasantly into Oliver's chest, made his stomach feel fluttery.

At least he knew one thing: he did, very much, love the thought of being loved.

* * *

Oliver's first night in Japan had been strange. His Japanese was still shaky at best. He had no idea what all had been said during the welcoming party and introductions. It had all been so overwhelming.

He'd never much liked his life in England, yet he found himself wanting to go home, if only for the sake of familiarity. _No. This is your home now. You can't go back. Why would you want to, anyway?_

_Knock, knock, knock._

That was probably Luka, he'd thought, coming to check on him. Yet when he opened the door, it wasn't the voluptuous pink-haired woman who'd helped him get here. It was a boy with spiky hair a bolder shade of blond than his own, and quite a bit longer, tied up into a ponytail. Right. One of the blue-eyed twins. Was this one Rin or Ren? Or was it Lin and Len? Or maybe Wren and Lynne? He hadn't been told how anyone's names were supposed to be spelled.

_"Konbanwa," _Oliver had greeted, a bit confused. _"Uh… junchou desu ka?"_

_"Yes, yes, I am well," _the boy had responded, his accent so thick that Oliver didn't realize at first that he was speaking in English. _"My sister and I are going to cinema tomorrow. Will you come with the two of us?"_

Oliver had blinked. _"Um… I… don't want to interfere with your plans," _he'd said.

The boy had blinked back blankly.

_"Arigatou," _Oliver clarified, a bit embarrassed by his lapse, _"demo… boku wa… isogashii. Desu."_

The boy had nodded. _"Okay. If you want to go, please join the two of us! Good night." _Then he'd left.

The next morning, Oliver came downstairs for lunch and discovered the twins about to leave. He hadn't even had time to try and hide himself. The female twin spotted him and it was over before it even began.

_"Yabai!" _She cheered, taking a protesting Oliver by the wrist and dragging him along. _"Hora, Ren! Shinjin wa mo ikimaaaaaasu!"_

Just as Oliver was about to correct the misunderstanding and dismiss himself, he saw the male twin, Ren or Len or however it was spelled. The smile he gave Oliver seemed… warm. Pleased. _"Youkoso, Oribaa! Are you ready?"_

For some reason, Oliver decided that he didn't want to disappoint the boy with the kind face. He nodded and followed the twins out the door.

From that day on, Len went out of his way to make certain that Oliver was included. Any time he left the house, either by himself or with Rin or with anyone at all, he first invited Oliver along. For the first month or two, Oliver always accepted, but he always hung back. He didn't have the nerve (or, well, the comprehension) to hold an extensive conversation with anyone. Yet just being near people, near _someone _who actually wanted him there… that was enough for him.

The day before Valentine's Day, Len had saved him from a humiliating breakdown in the middle of a movie theater. He'd talked to him, comforted him, cheered him up by making a bit of a fool of himself as well. From that moment on, Len truly became his best friend. A symbol of comfort, of protection, of safety.

Oliver had become acclimated to the new culture and language by the second month of his residency. This was when he truly began to open up to everyone, learn more about them, teach them about himself. He let slip one evening in early March that he was fascinated by astronomy, particularly the sight and patterns of the stars.

Len's face had lit up, and that night he led Oliver to a door at the back of the junk room. Three flights of stairs later, Oliver was face-to-face with a full and starry sky, unobscured by the trees in the yard.

_"You could set up a workshop here," _Len had told him after a few moments of breathless, wordless wonder. _"Do you have a telescope? We could get you a telescope." _He'd laughed then, no doubt because Oliver was still too enraptured to pay him any mind. _"Or we could move your bed up here."_

Oliver didn't say much more that night. He just laid out on the rough tiles and watched the stars. And Len sat by his side, watching with him.

Somehow, they found themselves up there at least once a week, often more. Oliver had always kept his interests to himself. No one cared about constellations and the seasonal changing of bird feathers. But Len not only listened, he engaged in Oliver's tangents actively, asking questions and _Ooh_ing and _Ahh_ing at the pointless facts he shared.

Soon, Oliver found himself ignoring the stars completely every time they were on the rooftop. The stars were beautiful, but the stars didn't listen to his interests and make him laugh. The stars didn't teach him to dance and play the guitar (although he was still rather bad at both, in spite of Len's best efforts). The stars didn't offer him a shoulder to cry on in the wake of bad memories or bad days, they didn't offer him words of encouragement and support, help him when he fumbled over his words, gossip with him over boba tea, sing with him while cleaning a fire-destroyed kitchen, make him feel happy and welcome and warm and—

And loved.

Len was away with the rest of the Cryptonloids for a weekend show, so Oliver laid on the rooftop alone, but he didn't feel lonely. In two days, Len would come back home. And they would laugh and they would sing and they would gossip and they would exist together, supporting one another, just as they always had. Just as they always would.

Oliver smiled.

He'd always loved Len. He just hadn't always had the word he needed for that feeling. Those feelings. Love, after all, is much more than a single emotion.

Even now, Oliver wasn't sure what kind of love he felt. He wasn't sure if it truly was the romantic love he saw in movies and sang of in his songs, the kind of love that leaves you feeling lightheaded and swooning and sighing. But whatever this feeling was, it was powerful and it was undeniable and it was real.

And that was enough for him.

* * *

Len was sure he'd misheard.

He was frozen in Oliver's arms, staring past him at nothing in particular. No. He'd totally misheard that. There was no way.

But Oliver pulled him tighter and whispered the words again, and Len was just barely aware of something like a squeak escaping his throat. Oliver chuckled against him and that was it, that did him in. His heart was in overdrive and his head spun and he felt so unbelievably dizzy, so he held onto Oliver for dear life, an anchor in the midst of the chaos of the world around them.

In his arms, that chaos ceased to exist. For that glorious moment in time, the world was nothing more than a Japanese idol boy and a British choir boy and the unspoken words between them finally being given a voice. In Oliver's arms, Len tossed aside whatever restraint he still held onto and produced those words he had wanted to say for so, so, _so _long.

"I love you, too."


	13. Through the Storm

"Let's have a picnic today!" Len had said. "It's supposed to be beautiful, so we can make a day of it!" he'd said. "Sure, the rainy season is slated to begin any day now, but that's for the mainland. Hokkaido rarely gets affected, so we'll be fine!" he'd said.

Kyokotta's park had only one small awning, an enclave with a drinking fountain that could hardly hold both himself and Oliver between its open posts. And while it did protect them from the torrential downpour, it didn't stop the rain that the wind blew in nearly sideways, nor did the picnic blanket they draped over their shoulders offer any semblance of warmth.

Len wasn't so sure if they were being included in the rainy season that year, or if they were catching the tail-end of a tsunami.

"A picnic," Oliver snarked beside him. "Good job. This is your best idea yet."

The wind blew harder and sprayed them yet again, saturating the blanket and the top layer of their clothes. Len could tell that the water was dripping into the basket they sat atop of. Not even the food would make it out of this unscathed.

Oliver shivered, so Len wrapped an arm around his shoulder and pulled him closer. He grunted, but he rested his head beneath Len's chin, his soaked hair making a quiet _squish_ing noise as he nuzzled in closer.

The rain showed no signs of letting up.

Sheepishly, Len smiled.

"You still love me, right?"

"Somehow? I do."


	14. A Family Meeting

Household get-togethers were far from rare. Every Thursday evening, the nine Vocaloids of the Kyokotta household would do everything in their power to get together for a homemade dinner, where they would swap stories of their week, talk about what was to come for each of them, and generally just have a good time.

Household meetings were more rare. Typically, they were held only whenever an argument arose, one that needed quick resolution.

Such an argument had taken place the night before. What began as friendly banter escalated into something almost violent, broken up only by an angry Meiko (armed with a heavy bottle of sake that could have easily bashed some skulls in, were she so inclined). It had been obvious then that the issue would need a formal resolution, settled by the power of democracy.

So here the nine sat at the dinner table, the lights low so that everyone could focus, a ceremonial air in the words Meiko spoke.

"I hate conflict as much as the next person," she started. "So thank you all for pulling your heads out from between your legs long enough for us to discuss this matter civilly. Let's begin."

Kaito sat at her side, a notepad and pen at the ready. Once Meiko finished speaking, he nodded solemnly, continuing the opening proclamation.

"Our matriarch will cast the first vote, and then we'll go from there. So, Mei-chan…"

Kaito inhaled deeply through his nostrils, letting the quiet tension dance on the air just a moment longer.

"Ass or tits?"

Meiko hummed thoughtfully, a smile playing on her lips. "I've gotta go with ass. There's really not much that's better than a nice, firm ass."

Len was the next to speak up.

"Hey, that's a little non-inclusive, don't'cha think? All asses are nice asses. 'Course I've always been an ass kinda guy myself."

"Hell yeah!" Meiko reached across the table to high-five him. "That's my boy!"

Kaito marked a second tally on his notepad before giving his answer. "For me, it's tits, all the way. As you all may know, our matriarch has the most wonderful, squishiest boobs I've ever had the pleasure of touching."

"Mine are the _only _boobs you've touched."

"And that's an honor I don't take lightly."

"_Ugh._" Rin gagged noisily, finger stuck in her mouth. "If I wanted to listen to my parents talk about their sex life, I'd hang around them when they're drunk."

"You're welcome to come with us next time we're out, then," Luka teased.

"Yeah, I'll pass." Rin snapped her fingers quickly, as if to clear the thought from her mind. "As for me, give me tits or give me death!"

Beside her, Miku sighed a forlorn sigh, eyes dropping to her chest. Rin returned her sigh with just as much theatrical drama.

"Miku-_chaaaaaaaan._" Rin hugged the distant-looking Miku, swaying her back and forth. "Stop pouting. You're halfway to a C-cup. That's like two cups bigger than me!"

Though her lips remained puckered into a pout, Miku made a noise of contentment. "Boobs are a powerful and mysterious force," she said, her voice still dark with self-pity. "How could I vote for anything else?"

"I think breasts have a certain enchanting quality to them," Gakupo agreed, a pensive finger to his chin. "They come in a wider variety of sizes and shapes, yet all are quite charming and beautiful. So I believe that's my answer as well."

"Onii-chan!" Gumi cried out in mock-horror. "What would that guy at the bar think if he knew your preference?"

"I don't care what he would think," Gakupo retorted, though his face had suddenly flushed redder than the camellias tattooed on his back, "because I admire him as a fellow musician, nothing more."

Rin snorted, still clinging to Miku. "You started wearing man buns when you met him. Only two kinds of guys wear man buns, and you're not a hipster, so…"

"It's not a man bun! It's a modernized take on a _chonmage, _thank you! Besides, he says I look good with my hair like that."

"You're not helping your case, dude."

"Don't worry, Gakkun." Oliver smiled brightly at the still-blushing man. "You can admire certain physical traits without being attracted to them. Boobs _are _pretty aesthetically pleasing."

"So that makes two votes Ass, five votes Tits," Kaito recapped, scribbling down the names of those who had cast their votes.

"Oh, n-no, my vote wasn't for…" Oliver cleared his throat, silently praying no one had caught the glance he threw in Len's direction. "My vote was for arse."

"Yeah, remember," Meiko reminded, her wink informing Oliver that he had, in fact, been caught in the act, "this is based solely on attraction, not aesthetics."

Gakupo, still in a battle of denial with Rin, affirmed his vote more profusely than ever.

"So what of my vote?" Luka asked. "Will my vote not be counted?"

A brief silence settled over the table.

Right. A lesbian Luka may have been, but she was an _asexual _lesbian.

She finally giggled, breaking up the tension. "I wouldn't have cast a vote anyway," she assured. "I think they both have their uses and appeals, but I don't prefer one to the other, even aesthetically."

"What," Gumi sulked, nudging her head against Luka's shoulder like an overly-affectionate cat, "you don't think my tits are nice?"

"They're very nice, dear. As is your ass. Even with that ridiculous tattoo."

"_Especially _with that _awesome_ tattoo, you mean?"

"So it's Tits for Gumi-chan as well?" Kaito asked.

"Nope!" Gumi threw a contrary finger in his direction, smirking. "Believe it or not, I'm going with ass! Like Len-Len said, all asses are good asses."

A few different exchanges were made across the table as Kaito counted the votes, then recounted, then recounted once more.

"...We have a tie," he finally announced.

A chorus of groans rose up from all.

"Luka?" Meiko cradled her forehead in her hands. "Luka, I'm sorry, you've gotta cast the tiebreaker. I'm not putting up with this argument any further."

"I'm afraid my answer wouldn't be of any use."

With that, a sea of suggestions spilled forth.

"Then let's flip a coin!"

"How about a game of _shiritori_? Whichever side wins the game wins the argument!"

"I say we settle this the old-fashioned way: with some good ole' fisticuffs!"

"We could call Master and have him cast the final vote?"

It was this last suggestion — Miku's suggestion — that made Meiko snap, slamming her fists against the table, a hellfire all but raging around her.

"_**No.**_" She snarled the word, though her anger wasn't directed at Miku, and Miku, thankfully, knew as much (lest she would have slunk beneath the table and stayed there for a few days). "We're not asking him anything. I hate that fucking snake!"

"We know, Mei-chan," Kaito cooed softly, rubbing comforting circles into her back.

"He could be on fire and I wouldn't walk across the street to piss on him!"

"We know, Mei-chan."

"Besides," Gakupo spoke over Meiko's continued rants and threats, "I don't think he'd exactly be amused to discover that _this _is what we sit around discussing. Perhaps I could contact mine and Gumi's Master, I'm sure he'd be more willing to cooperate, but the Crypton Master…"

"We could call _my _old Master," Oliver suggested, barely containing his laughter. This whole absurd situation, he realized, hadn't even seemed absurd to him until Gakupo had mentioned it. "I don't have contact with him anymore, but I still have his number, so we could pass it off as a prank call."

"He doesn't speak Japanese, does he? If you spoke to him in English, he'd recognize your voice."

"Luka could ask him then! He probably wouldn't—"

Miku shouted a series of _Hey, hey, hey!_s and flailed her arms about, forcing everyone's attention onto her.

"Of course I'm not suggesting asking Master _directly,_" she said, and some glint of mischief — something almost foreign to her normally sincere countenance — sparkled in her teal-colored eyes.

* * *

The tone clicked to a stop on the other line.

"_Crypton Future Media. May I help you?_"

"Good evening, Master!" Miku greeted in her most cheerful voice.

"_Ah,_" he greeted back, audibly pleased, "_CV01! Good evening! Is everything alright?_"

"Of course!" Miku bit her lip. "Master, would you think it _ass_-inine if we were to ask you something?"

A pause.

"_I don't suppose so, no._"

Cheers and protests rose up in equal measure. Miku pumped her fist.

"Great. Thank you!" And then she hung up without waiting for Master's reaction.

"I told you!" Meiko growled. "Fucking _snake!_"

"Doesn't matter," Rin taunted back. "We all agreed on the tiebreaker and now it's done. We stan tits in this house!"

Luka folded her arms and snickered. "Now you see why I didn't want to cast the final vote."

"Good talk, everyone." Len clapped in a quiet applause. "The results won't change my mind, but we lost fair and square."

"Mei-chan," Kaito said, hugging his still-aggravated wife, "what do you say? Shall we celebrate Team Tit's victory tonight?"

"You're sleeping in the bathtub tonight."

But the results were the results, and there was no changing them, no matter how the other half of the household felt.

The meeting was adjourned.


	15. Regarding Things to Come

"Have you ever thought about getting married?"

No sooner was the question in the air than did Len begin violently berating himself. He hadn't meant to say… no, he _had _meant to say it, he just hadn't realized how _blunt _it was going to sound.

"I mean," he corrected, "like… not getting married necessarily, just… having a wedding. Like, Miku-chan's getting all excited about wedding season coming up, so she's been showing me all kinds of dresses and bouquets and shit like that, so it got me thinking about the kind of wedding I'd wanna have and I was curious if you…" He winced. Somehow, he got the distinct feeling he'd made it worse.

But if Oliver found anything about the question odd, he didn't show it. He didn't make any startled noise or take his eye off of the starry sky overhead or anything like that. His response sounded perfectly even and casual.

"I don't guess so, no." After a pause, he added, "I never saw myself getting married, so I never bothered imagining it, I suppose."

Len's heart sank just the slightest bit, but he was determined not to let it get to him.

"How about you?" Oliver asked, and Len felt him shift as he rested his arms behind his head. "What kind of wedding would you want to have?"

"I dunno." Len glanced over, glancing back up when he saw that Oliver's eye still hadn't moved. "I know I'd wanna get married in the summer."

Oliver nodded. "Wouldn't that be a bit hot, though? Unless you're planning on wearing something with short sleeves."

"Well, it'd be in the evening. That way it's not too hot. And the sunset would be gorgeous and romantic, so there's that, too."

Now Oliver laughed, a light and gentle noise that lifted Len's heart back up to its proper place. "Sounds like you've got the whole thing planned out already."

Len tugged his scarf higher up, half to block out the cold and half to conceal the blush that came to rest on his cheeks. "Believe it or not, no, that's not the case."

And that was true, technically. He didn't have the _whole _thing planned out. All he knew was that he wanted to exchange vows during a summer sunset, maybe in the garden, where they would be shielded by the shadows of the trees and surrounded by the purples and blues of the hydrangeas and the morning glories, with just the Household and maybe a few acquaintances in attendance. And he wanted to wear black pants and a white tailcoat with a black bow, woven with gold accents, a yellow rose on his lapel. Maybe he'd even tie back his hair with a black ribbon, just to pull the look together.

What he _didn't _have planned was what his groomsperson was going to wear. And that one was obvious, of course: it changed based on whoever he was crushing on or what kind of mood he was in. Sometimes they wore a dress with a sweetheart neckline and a billowing skirt, other times a black suit with a sleek tie.

The most recent iteration of this fantasy involved the one standing opposite of him in a tux much like his, but with a ruffled undershirt and high collar and maybe a golden cravat. It was a fashion that had gone out of style some two and a half centuries before he'd been created (and one that had never even reached Japan before dying out), but…

Well, Oliver would look dashing in traditional Victorian formal wear, he thought.

He entertained the thought for a while, enjoying the comfortable silence at Oliver's side and the beautiful sea of light above them. Maybe he should have asked another question or two. Feel it out a bit more before giving up. But he was just as content to leave the topic where it was. There'd be time, he decided, and he could always bring it up again later. Better safe than sorry.

Oliver's soft voice broke the silence.

"My favorite flowers bloom in the summer, you know."

Persian buttercups, full and soft and cheerful blooms. Len smiled up at the sky. "I know."

"If there was enough advance notice," he continued, voice still all too casual, "I could ask the florist to plant lots of yellow buttercups, and then they'd bloom just in time to make a lovely bouquet, perfect for a summer wedding."

Len wanted to convince himself that the startled gasp he heard wasn't his own, but he knew that wasn't true.

Before he could stop it, the image in his mind's eye morphed. Yeah. The buttercups would match Oliver's cravat. Maybe Len could get one for himself and pin it to his suit. It would hold more personality than a rose, that was for certain— no, he was overthinking it. Oliver didn't mean it like that. He wasn't one to beat around the bush with such remarks. Still, Len couldn't help but look over at him, as though that would make his mind shut up.

Oliver's countenance betrayed his facade. Even though he spoke so plainly, his face was dark with a heat that didn't come from his layers of sweaters and coats, and his eye shifted about nervously, as though he were trying to look anywhere but at Len. His breath was quiet, but it was shallow.

"And I might wear a lighter shirt with a vest instead of a suit," he said, as though oblivious to Len's eyes on him. "I overheat pretty easily, you know. But as long as it's during sunset and the shirt material is thin enough, I think it would be perfect."

Yes, of course. He could wear a vest to match Len's bow, black and woven with gold, and the cuffs of his shirt could carry ruffles instead of the front — what was it that had sparked Len's obsession with Oliver in ruffles? He would just look so _good _in them. And the ruffles on his clothes would match the petals of his bouquet so perfectly.

Oliver looked over then, and Len felt as though the whole world had stopped in its tracks and stolen the air from his lungs while it was at it. His eye sparkled brighter than the stars above them, a luscious golden color, and his smile was so… so _shy, _but so sweet.

"You're imagining it too," he said, and his voice cracked suddenly and went up a few pitches. "Aren't you?"

Len's scarf still covered his mouth, and he realized then that it was wet with the condensation of his breath. "Yeah," he admitted, just as quietly.

He searched Oliver's face, looking for something — confirmation, maybe. Confirmation that this was more than just teasing. That he really… that he was really implying what Len hoped he was implying.

Eventually, though, his smile wavered, and he looked back up to the sky.

"But it's just a fantasy, so in the end I suppose it doesn't matter."

Len's heart didn't sink so much as it dropped right into his feet.

"What do you mean?" he asked a bit more forcefully than he meant to. They'd had a moment, a moment of undeniable understanding, a moment where fantasy had really felt like the future — _their _future. So where the hell did _that _come from?

Oliver wasn't as shaken by the change in mood. "It could never happen," he said, matter-of-fact, but Len didn't miss the note of sadness in his tone. His smile was gone, replaced with something almost mournful.

Len couldn't form enough coherent thoughts to respond. He hadn't been expecting to receive an answer tonight. At least not a clear-cut answer. Clear-cut Oliver's response may not have been, but it was an answer, and Len knew as much.

He shifted onto his side and propped himself up on his elbow. "What makes you think that?" he tried. Oliver didn't look back at him, instead moving his lips silently for a moment before responding.

"Well, I mean…" He shrugged. "It's not legal here yet, right? Same-sex marriage? So based on that alone we couldn't get married."

Though Len already understood, hearing it laid out like that — hearing the words _we _and _married _on Oliver's tongue — made him feel dizzy and floaty and made him want to wrap his arms around himself and sway and sigh like a lovestruck teenager. (Which he was, but that wasn't the point.)

"And even if it was legal," Oliver said, bringing Len back into reality, "most countries require you to be eighteen, but I'm only _seven_teen on paper, and unless your Master changed yours you'd still be…" Realization dawned across his face then, displayed in the raise of his eyebrow and the pout of his lip. "But even if he _does _have you down as eighteen now, your Master would never allow it, would he?"

He wouldn't, Len knew. The Crypton Master was adamant that his Vocaloids refrain from serious (or at least public) relationships. Something about how it restricted artistic creativity. The one exception to this rule was Meiko and Kaito, and that had only been allowed because Master had been desperate for their cooperation. (The whole story, Kaito admitted once, was long and rather dark, so Len didn't know the whole of it, only the outcome.) Even then, they still weren't exempt from playing kissy-kissy with other Vocaloids, and Master made no secret of his distaste for their relationship.

He'd never let Len get married.

Which Len always knew, and which he'd already prepared an excuse for.

"I mean," he started, "yeah, it… it wouldn't be a legally binding thing. But I'd be making a promise to you. And I don't take the promises I make to you lightly, you know that. Maybe we wouldn't have the official title, but we'd have each other and our word and…"

Try though he might, he couldn't go on. Dammit. He hadn't meant to go this far yet. He rolled onto his back and covered his burning face and cursed himself for not preparing for this, for not practicing what he was going to say.

"...and that's what the ceremony would be for," Oliver finished. "To make it feel more 'official'."

That hadn't been what Len was going for, but he was right anyway, so he nodded.

It wasn't even the ceremony he was concerned with anymore. He would just as soon exchange his perfect summer wedding for a series of awkwardly-worded promises on the rooftop in the last month of winter, blushing like a mad fool into his gloved hands. It didn't matter. He didn't care whether or not he would ever be a handsome, well-dressed groom. He just wanted to be Oliver's… Oliver's…

Even thinking the word made him blush harder, until he was certain his skin outshone the stars.

Another silence passed between them, and just as Len was preparing to crawl on all fours back inside, Oliver spoke.

"I'm not worried about you keeping your promise. I know you will. I'm worried I wouldn't be good enough."

This was enough to pull Len's hands away from his face. He had half a mind to launch into a long-winded speech about how Oliver was _perfect _and _wonderful _and of _course _he was good enough and he was _so much better _than what Len deserved but—

Oliver was laying on his side, away from Len, so all he could see was his back, the quick rise and fall of his side.

Len rested a hand on his side, and he stiffened at first, only to relax at his touch.

"...I wouldn't make a good husband, I don't think." His voice was muffled now, as though he were speaking into his clothes. Len was sure his heart was about to rip through his bones and muscle and skin. How was it that Oliver was able to say the things he couldn't, and say them in such a straightforward way?

"I don't want you to be a husband, you know." Len rubbed his side and Oliver relaxed further against the blanket they were laid out on. "I want you to be Oliver. That's who I fell in love with, after all. If you ever change, I don't want it to be for my sake."

Oliver didn't respond, instead breathing steadily against Len's hand for a time. A light worry settled into Len's chest. Maybe this _was _too soon. Maybe he'd overwhelmed Oliver with all this talk about weddings and marriage and changes.

"But more than that," he said when he realized Oliver wasn't going to say anything, "I want you to be happy. Because I'm happiest when you're happy. So, um… I-I-I didn't mean to get all serious and overbearing there. If you're not ready, that's okay, so please don't feel like we _have _to get married. 'Cause I'm happy just being like we are. So if you're happy with that then—"

Oliver pulled away, but before Len could draw back his hand or wonder if he'd said anything wrong, Oliver rolled over to face him, arms curled to his chest, the words tumbling from him in a rush.

"I _do _want to be more!" he all but shouted. "I love you so much and I could never imagine a future without you and I want to keep becoming more and hold onto you and be your one and only forever!"

Not for the first time that night, Len gasped.

_Forever _was a word that no Vocaloid took lightly. For them, forever was a very tangible possibility. Forever didn't mean _for the next few decades _or _until we get old_. It meant hundreds of years, if not thousands, far into an unforeseeable and unstable future, long after their novelty wore off and humanity forgot about them.

And not a one of them would ever think to make that promise if they didn't intend to see it through.

Taking Oliver's hands in his, Len grinned. His hands were trembling. But his stare was intense, sincere, and Len knew he meant every word of what he'd said.

"...Ollie-kun, are you proposing to me?"

Oliver blinked, and Len had to fight not to laugh. "I thought _you _were proposing to _me,_" he said, confusion thick in his voice.

Len kept smiling, but he couldn't help a groan. "Some proposal," he murmured. "Don't even have a ring or anything."

"I don't need a ring. My answer would be the same either way."

Somehow, Len had managed to hold off any highly emotional reaction until then. But now he felt a sharp stinging in the backs of his eyes, and his vision blurred.

Sniffing, Oliver grasped onto his hands more tightly.

They didn't say much else. It wasn't long before the stars began to dim, a sign of the oncoming morning. So they gathered their blanket and shuffled back inside, throwing on some warm night clothes and snuggling into bed together, the last remains of the cold melting from their skin.

Len was nearly asleep when the drowsy call of his name brought him back.

"Len-kun?"

"Mm?"

"When is your next day off?"

"Nnnnnnnnext Wednesday, I think?"

Oliver hummed, nuzzling his cheek deeper into the pillow they shared. "We could take a day trip to Sapporo then. If you want, they've got a shop in one of the malls that sells cheap but durable rings."

Len felt suddenly hot, but that only made him want to hold Oliver closer. "No way," he said, and he pressed a sleepy kiss to Oliver's bangs. "If I get you a ring, it's gonna be the best ring money can buy."

A little _hmph. _left Oliver's throat, but he didn't argue. "Then we could go ahead and buy yours too," he suggested. "Rings are cheaper in pairs. And they'll probably be less expensive since it's still winter."

Len only hummed in agreement, too tired and too happy to say anything else.

This was happening. This was actually happening.

Surely it was too good to be true. Surely he'd wake up and discover it had all been a dream. Yeah. He'd wake up and realize that he'd just conjured the whole conversation up in his sleep. Yet for now, he didn't care. For now he had Oliver, and he had a sacred promise to uphold, and even if it _had _been nothing more than his mind playing tricks on him, he was going to honor that promise with his life.

He slipped under then, and he dreamed of Oliver with a ring on his finger a bouquet of Persian buttercups in his hands.


	16. Third Time's the Charm

"Of course, the common chaffinch is as common as its name would suggest. There was always an abundance of them in Huddersfield. More of them than pigeons, even."

"Mmhm?"

"That's what I thought James was at first, you know. It was winter, so his plumage was almost entirely brown, and he played the part quite well, being a different subspecies of finch and all. I thought he was just a smaller female chaffinch until I noticed the pattern on his head was different from your average chaffinch."

"Mmhm."

"And, of course, there were still plenty of pigeons. They were always so fat and cute and they said hello to me every time I went into town. I'd slice some apples up into tiny cubes and pass them out for an afternoon snack. And then there was a feed store just outside of town, so I'd go there and get them some dried corn during the winter…"

Len continued to nod and threw in a vocalization or two where it seemed appropriate, though, in truth, he was no longer following anything that was being said.

In his defense, how could he focus on anything other than the contented smile gracing Oliver's soft, round face, the tenderness with which he traced his fingers over the glossy pages of his _Birds of the British Isles _book? His voice carried the bouncing, almost trotting quality it held only when he discussed one of his special interests, a quality only a very few had ever had the honor of hearing.

Len leaned his cheek against his palm, jaw burning from the smile that wouldn't leave.

God, he was so _cute._

At some point, his gaze migrated to his lips and stayed there. Oliver's lips. They were a little thin, but they were, at the same time, a supple and pale pink. Maybe Europe's harsher winters had gotten him into the habit of keeping his lips hydrated. If that was the case, it was certainly working for him.

What kind of lip balm did he use? Was the pink hue natural, or did he use a tinted product? Was it scented? Flavored?

Not entirely deliberate, Len's tongue flicked out to wet his own lips.

"The great tit. If you can get past the name, they're quite a pretty species, and a hardy one at that."

Oliver looked up at Len then, grinning as he gestured to one of the drawings in his book, blissfully unaware that Len had tuned out long ago.

His lips didn't look as thin as normal right now, even stretched into a smile. They were elastic and… almost plush-looking, really.

Maybe he should ask what he used to keep his lips in such good shape, Len thought.

...Maybe he could just… find out on his own.

Len barely remembered closing his eyes, and even then, he didn't quite realize what he was doing until he felt a burst of air on his face, perfectly timed with an Oliver-sounding squeak.

He wasn't sure if he pulled back or if Oliver did (or if they'd both pulled back at the same time, which was the more likely probability). Oliver's eye was wide now, pupil a tiny black pinpoint, his face as red as the leaves on the changing trees.

Len could feel the same blush creeping up onto his cheeks. He couldn't tell if that was a "shocked but happy" face or a "shocked and frankly upset" face.

"Uh… s-sorry, I just…" He laughed nervously, scratching a suddenly itchy spot just beneath his ponytail. "I dunno. I didn't mean… I just kinda… um… I'm sorry."

Oliver blinked at him a few times before he could move, and then he didn't do much more than touch the pads of his fingers to his lips.

"N-no, no, it's fine," he assured. The bounce was gone from his voice, which had jumped up at least five pitches. "I was just… expecting it to be more… planned out, I suppose." He looked down at his fingers, and his voice lowered to a whisper. "Being my first kiss and all."

Dread dropped onto Len's chest like an anvil.

Fuck. That _was _his first kiss.

He all but kowtowed at Oliver's feet as apology after apology spilled forth. Oliver's first kiss. In a moment of impulsiveness, Len had squandered it. Their lips hadn't even touched long enough to leave behind any kind of lingering sensation. It had been for nothing. That sacred first kiss, wasted, all because Len was just that big of an idiot.

"Len! _Len! _"

Len winced and looked back up. The color hadn't gone completely from Oliver's face, and he still looked rather bewildered — whether from the shock of the kiss or from the sight of Len performing _dogeza, _Len wasn't sure.

"Len, I'm not upset, I promise!" He set aside his book and folded his hands into his lap, glancing back and forth between them and Len. "I… It just startled me. That's all." He cleared his throat. "Besides, we'll, ah… have plenty more of those. So I really couldn't care less if the first one was so sudden."

The last sentence was so quick and quiet that Len hardly heard it, but once the words sank in, he gulped.

He'd once held out for a Sacred First Kiss as well. Young and naive, he'd decided that his first kiss would be shared with no less than the love of his life, his One and Only, the one he'd spend the rest of his life with in matrimonial bliss.

But such an expectation is unrealistic for an idol. His first kiss of many had been shared with Miku for a music video of a song whose name he'd forgotten. ("Yeah, the first person I ever kissed was my sister's girlfriend." How many people can say _that? _) And in the time since then, he'd kissed every member of the household at least once, along with a few other Vocaloids from other cities and provinces.

Kissing was something he was extremely familiar with. He just… never shared a kiss with someone he actually loved. Romantically loved. So he'd grown a little desensitized to the act, or at least the thought of the act holding any weight.

"Well…" He sat back up on his knees, hands curling into fists at his sides. "If you want, you can kiss me. Since I kissed you first. Level the playing field a little."

Whatever color had left Oliver's cheeks came roaring back. Len was considering taking his words back when Oliver nodded and mumbled an "Okay, sure".

So instead of speaking, Len took a breath, held his face up, and closed his eyes again.

Oliver lingered. It gave Len time to take in the situation, realize what was happening. Oliver was right there, his breath soft and warm in the cooling air of early autumn. Len was suddenly aware of his heart hammering away in his chest. He'd spent more time than he cared to admit daydreaming of easy kisses between breathless giggles, and he was closer now than ever. His pulse was thunderous in his ears just thinking about it.

He wanted this. Good _God, _he wanted this.

It happened, and then it was over just as quickly.

Len's eyelids fluttered open. It had been even shorter than that first kiss. There had been a pressure against his mouth that pressed his skin into his teeth, then nothing. He wouldn't have known for certain that there even _was _a second kiss if not for the discomfited mess in front of him turning his head away.

He wasn't sure what was louder: his heartbeat or Oliver's breathing.

"Oh my gosh." Oliver was still blushing, still wild-eyed, but smiling at long last. He looked almost as if his mind was in a place his body was not. "That was…" He laughed then, more a rhythmic exhale than a proper laugh, but it warmed Len all the same. "Thank you. I… I really liked that."

Len smiled back. Maybe he hadn't messed up too badly. There was still an ache that settled lightly into his chest, an unfulfilled expectation, a longing for more. But… well, they'd have plenty more, as Oliver had said. Plenty of opportunities in the future.

Finally, Oliver looked back at Len. Maybe it was the way the sunset's light caught his visage, or maybe it was the haze of romanticism that clouded Len's head, but he looked almost… no, not almost. _Entirely _ethereal. From the crimson that dusted his cheeks, to the golden glow of his eye, to the upward curl of his lips, everything held Len entranced.

Oliver kept him under that spell a moment longer, then his smile grew, just slightly. "Third time's the charm?" he offered, and the question of which of them initiated what followed would still be playfully debated for years to come.

The third kiss was the best one, no contest. It was slow and sweet and everything Len had daydreamed of and more. Oliver's lips were so soft and warm, like a blanket fresh from the dryer on a cold winter's day. He did his best to memorize their shape in those few precious moments. He never, ever, _ever _wanted to forget this.

The two parted quicker than Len would have liked, but he took the opportunity to re-wet his suddenly parched lips.

Vanilla. Oliver wore vanilla-flavored lip balm.

Before Len could say anything, Oliver ducked his head and buried his face into Len's chest, curling his fingers into the fabric of his shirt. He was hot with what Len guessed was some mixture of happiness and embarrassment, the same emotions that threatened to overwhelm him.

"...That was nice," Oliver muttered after a moment. Len hummed in agreement and held him in return, rubbing his back gently.

"Len?"

"Mmhm?"

"Can we… do this again tomorrow?"

"We can do it again now, if you want."

Oliver whined, and Len could actually feel his body heat rising once more. He didn't mean to laugh, but he couldn't help it.

"Okay," he said, pulling the flustered Oliver deeper into their embrace. "Tomorrow sounds great."

Had the vibrations and movement against his chest not informed Len that more was being said, he wouldn't have caught Oliver's next request.

"And, um... can we... count that last one as our first kiss?"

The burning in Len's jaw came back, a very welcome pain that went all the way up to his ears. "Sounds good to me."


	17. The Perils of Dating a Morning Person

The room was flooded with light, assaulting Oliver with its cruel joy and brightness.

He groaned and blocked the light as best he could with his hands, glaring at its source. He'd been having the strangest dream: he and the twins and Miku were in Australia, climbing a series of fire ladders in order to reach the Outback in time for the tea tree harvesting season. Frankly, he'd been rather eager to see how it ended.

But the light of the sun had startled him out of his dream before he had that opportunity, and there stood a silhouette in the middle of that light, basking in it as though it were anything but a blinding nuisance.

Hearing his groaning, Len turned around, though Oliver's hands blocked his face. He wanted to imagine it was filled with remorse.

"Morning," he greeted, entirely too chipper for that little fantasy to be true. "Sorry if I woke you up. James wanted out, so I tried opening the window as quietly as possible, but it's such a pretty day out I couldn't help but open the curtains while I was at it."

As if on cue, a breeze blew into the room, cool and refreshing. It caressed Oliver's face and almost made him feel at ease.

Were it not for the blaze that his eye still hadn't adjusted to, he would have found it quite peaceful.

He muttered a _"'S'okay"_ and flipped onto his right side, pulling the covers up to his nose and burying the side of his head as deeply into his pillow as it would go. That was one benefit of being half-blind, he supposed: he only had to worry about covering one eye. The other couldn't perceive light no matter how bright it was.

The bedsprings bounced softly beneath him, and a hand ran through his hair. Mm. That was nice.

"I'm gonna take a shower right quick," Len said.

"Good," Oliver mumbled back, already lulled halfway back to sleep by the teasing of his hair and the breeze against his neck. "You need one."

Len laughed quietly, and Oliver smiled. How could he not forgive his sweet Len-kun? He'd just wanted to enjoy the beautiful morning nature had given them. And that breeze _was _quite nice.

"I got up before the alarm went off, so I shut it off. Sleep in all you want, okay, babe?" He leaned down to kiss Oliver's cheek, and by the time he heard the bathroom door close, Oliver was drifting off once more.

Did tea trees even have a harvesting season? And did they even grow in the Outback?

Those questions remained unanswered. Soon, new visions filled his mind's eye. He was on a ship, lying comfortably beneath the sun's warmth, the waves rocking him to sleep. Somewhere off in the distance he heard James, who was singing his approval of the lovely day. He heard the water now — the shower, probably, but it sounded just like a crash of waves against the boat's hull.

He nestled deeper into the blankets, feeling his consciousness slip blissfully away.

"_Rrraaaaaa__**aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaagh!**_"

His eye snapped open, and he shot up, tranquility shattered by what he could only describe as a death scream.

Before he could throw the covers off and run to make sure Len wasn't being brutally murdered, passionate, chest-voice singing took its place.

"_Kachitoooooootte mooooou mada mitasarezuuuuu, mata haaaaashiiiiiiriiiiiiii daaaaaashiiiiiiiiitaaaaaaaa! Makuuuuu waaaaaaa kiiiiiiiiiiiiitteeeeee otosareeeettaaaaaa…_"

As Len sang, Oliver was able to relax a bit, though he couldn't make his heart slow down. Alright. Everything was alright. Len always sang when he showered by himself. Sometimes he sang songs with harsh vocals. This was nothing new.

"_Toza __**saaaaareeeeeetaaaaa kono yoooooniiiiii kanzeeeennnnn naaaaaa, **__mo__**noooooo naaaaaado naaaaaaiiiiiiiiiii!**_"

...He could have at least chosen something a bit less abrasive, considering he was well aware that Oliver was trying to sleep.

The walls separating the second- and third-floor halls from the bedrooms were thick and sound didn't escape them easily, but the walls inside the rooms themselves were another story. Perhaps Len wasn't completely aware of that. Never mind that he'd lived here several years longer than Oliver had.

He fell back against the bed, bounced in place a few times from the force of the impact. His heart was still hammering away.

Well. There went his chances of getting back to sleep.

As Len continued to belt out his chosen tune, Oliver crawled to the opposite side of the bed, glancing at the alarm clock.

8:04.

He collapsed back into the sheets with another groan.

Oh well. He was hungry anyway.

He dragged himself out of bed, pulled on some shorts and a tee-shirt, and groggily made his way downstairs.

Len was off that day, so maybe Oliver could make some of those banana muffins he liked so much. If he hurried, Len would finish showering and getting dressed and come downstairs just as the muffins were being put into the oven, and then—

And then Oliver could eat every last one of them himself, letting Len do no more than watch. Maybe he'd even pass some out to the rest of the household. He could even give Gakupo an extra one to take to Ebetsu for his not-boyfriend, all while his own boyfriend was left to fend for himself.

Yes. That would be a good way to hammer home the message that, when Len told Oliver he could sleep, he should _let him sleep._

The shower wasn't as quick as Len had promised. Oliver was already pulling the completed muffins from the oven when he heard Len greet Gumi and Rin (who were in a heated DDR battle in the living room — who plays DDR at nine in the morning?). His lips curled into a devious grin as he heard footsteps approaching, Len's nose leading him to the kitchen.

He set the pan on the countertop and turned to greet Len in a honey-sweet voice, and Len—

Len, freshly-showered, bright-eyed Len, already looked shocked.

"...I thought you were still asleep," he said, and dear God, was that regret in his voice? "The covers were all bunched up and it looked like you were under them so I was gonna surprise you with breakfast in bed, but..." But even so, he smiled again, eyeing the muffins before looking back to Oliver. "But I wanna pay you back. Are you free this afternoon? I'll take you to lunch. Your pick!"

Oliver blinked.

...Dammit, it would be so much easier to enact his plan if Len had just kept it to a simple _"Those look great, can't wait to eat some!" _. But of course it wasn't that easy. He had to go and be all _genuine _and _sympathetic _and _lovey-dovey._

"Um… that sounds nice," Oliver said. "Futsayo?"

"Futsayo's always a good choice." Then Len pulled him into a loose hug, swaying in place with him. "Man, how often does a day start out so good and then keep getting better as it goes?"

Defeated, Oliver went limp in his arms.

He couldn't say no to _that._

Whatever satisfaction he would have felt getting petty revenge, it was nothing compared to the gratification of watching Len stuff his face. Between bites, he mapped out plans for the day: since Oliver was up earlier than usual for a weekend, they could go into town and find something fun to do before lunch, then maybe catch a movie afterward. Then they would get dinner — they could grab something quick, or, if Oliver was in the mood, they could make a reservation at Kyokotta's single high-end restaurant, come back home, throw something dressy on, and have a fancy dinner date.

"Actually, they mentioned it on their Instagram a few days back: they've got some kind of new imported seasonal champagne, and I know how much you love imported champagne."

It was a lot, far more than Oliver would usually agree to on only nine hours of sleep. Yet with each new suggestion, he found himself feeling less and less tired.

Maybe waking up earlier had its perks.

Although… maybe he could still talk with Len about not singing/screaming metal songs when he was trying to sleep. If he was going to wake up before eleven on a Saturday, he at least wanted to be woken gently, with a soft breeze and softer kisses and maybe a bit less direct sunlight than he'd been exposed to that morning.

Yes. That sounded nice.

If that was how every morning could start, maybe mornings wouldn't be so bad after all.


	18. At My Worst As Well

The bed was empty when Len woke up.

In his sleepy haze, he sat up and surveyed the general vicinity. The sheets beside him were still warm. James was fast asleep in his windowsill nest, where he often slept on nights he deemed too cold to be cozy outside. The bathroom door was closed and the lights were off, and no sounds were coming from inside.

He was reluctant to get up, but he was more reluctant to go back to sleep in an empty bed.

A light and pleasant aroma met his nose just outside of their bedroom door, and it led him down the stairs and into the kitchen. He wasn't sure what warmed him more: the earthy scent of brewing tea, or the familiar figure illuminated in the kitchen window's low light.

"Found you," he cheered groggily. Oliver jerked — he was always so easily startled — as Len took a seat at the island, resting his face against the cool marble.

"I'm sorry," Oliver said, and just hearing him put Len at ease once more. "I didn't mean to wake you."

"'S fine." Len already felt himself drifting off, Oliver's voice and the bubbling of the teapot comfortable. "I was awake."

The bubbling continued for a time, then it faded out, the kettle brought down to drinking temperature. Len was almost back to sleep when he heard a soft _clank _somewhere near his head.

Oliver sat opposite him, a cup of tea in front of him, another in his hands. The one in his hands he was offering to Len.

Tea was good and all, but it never relaxed Len like it did Oliver. It woke him up and made him feel alert and jittery if he had any after dark. But he wasn't just about to refuse. Oliver's Sleepless Night Teas were always worth losing rest over.

The first sip scattered the clouds of sleep. It was a chamomile tea with just a hint of sage, sweetened with honey.

_"This is probably why I got kicked out of England," _Oliver had joked more than once. _"I can't stand straight black tea. I have to make it all sweet and fancy and junk like that."_

The one time Len had tried it, he couldn't stand it, either, so he was fine with that.

The two sat and sipped in silence. Oliver had made enough for two more cups, which Len happily accepted, and by the time the kettle was empty, he was wide awake but content with life.

"Tell me you wrote that recipe down," he said, toweling off the freshly-washed dishes as Oliver handed them to him. "I think that's some of the best you've made yet."

Oliver smiled, and for some reason, it didn't sit right with Len. It was too small, too short. On any other night, he would have passed it off as Oliver being tired. But his eye wasn't foggy with sleep. It was distant, not entirely there, but otherwise clear. He didn't sway on his feet or lean into Len as he dried off his hands. He was… kind of stiff, really.

Almost like he was intentionally keeping his distance.

The dishes dried and put up, Oliver flashed another insincere smile. "Thank you for sitting with me."

"Of course. Any time."

Oliver nodded. Without another word, he brushed past Len, gaze trained on the ground.

Oh no. Was this an oncoming depressive episode? They did sometimes happen late at night. And when that was the case, Oliver would rarely open up as easily as normal, mostly in fear of bothering Len's sleep.

Well, Len didn't plan on sleeping any time soon. He followed Oliver out of the kitchen and caught him at the base of the stairs.

"Ollie-kun?"

He stopped and glanced over his shoulder, making a noise to indicate that Len had his attention.

Definitely an oncoming episode. The side of his face Oliver exposed was the side that was covered. He never did that to Len unless he was in particularly low spirits.

"Wanna step outside?" Len offered, already creeping towards the entryway. "It's not that cold tonight. Some fresh air will help us sleep better."

A bit hesitantly, Oliver agreed.

The night air was a bit cooler than Len had anticipated (quite a bit cooler, actually), but it was no less refreshing. Dahlias poked up from the flower bed nearest the garden bench, stubbornly coaxed into a late bloom by Luka and Miku's hands. Dense clouds covered the sky, obscuring their colors, but their pleasing shapes were plenty visible. Len hoped that maybe Oliver would feel calm enough for conversation if he took their beauty in long enough.

Once he was sure enough time had passed, he took a deep breath.

"Ollie-kun, can we talk for a minute?"

Oliver blinked. Then he nodded, uttering a near-inaudible _"Yeah, okay"._

That was good. As long as he was willing to talk, maybe they could avert an episode, or at least curtail it before it got too bad.

"You don't seem too hot tonight," he started.

Ruefully, Oliver grinned. "I've never been hot. Not counting the deformity, I think I'd call myself average-looking."

Len pressed his lips together, suppressing a sigh.

To some extent, he wanted to play along, laugh and tell Oliver to shut up, he _was _attractive, but he also knew it wasn't just a cute (if self-deprecating) joke. Oliver did this sometimes when he didn't really want to talk. And every time that happened, the subject he was trying to divert from was ultimately one that desperately needed addressed.

So, for the time being, Len stayed silent.

"...Sorry," Oliver said when he realized Len wasn't going to react.

"No, it's alright! I'm just worried about you, that's all." A breeze blew then, bitingly cold, so Len placed his palm against Oliver's back to ease the chill. He would have enveloped him in a warm hug were he not being so evasive. For now, this was probably safest. "Is something wrong? Something happen? Just one of those nights?"

As expected, Oliver didn't answer right away. He stared straight ahead at the dahlias, lips set in something that looked like the beginnings of a grimace.

"I've just been thinking," he said at last.

"About?"

The grimace grew harsher.

In a bid to take the pressure off of him, Len turned his attention to the flowerbed, rubbing Oliver's back. "You don't have to tell me everything if you don't want. But I do wanna know how I can help."

More moments passed in silence, disquieting and almost eerie. He was like Len in that way, Len had often thought: they both had a habit of overthinking, waiting until the last possible moment to speak their minds.

"If I tell you," Oliver finally said, "then… you have to promise me you'll hear me out."

Len smiled. "Of course I will."

"No, I… I mean it. I'm going to say some things that might be uncomfortable to hear, and…" He gulped. "I really need you to hear me out. No interruptions."

A bit startled, Len looked back to Oliver. For his part, Oliver wasn't looking back. His eye remained down. He looked… focused, almost deathly so.

He did say uncomfortable things sometimes. On those especially bad days, his darkest thoughts would come forth, thoughts of self-harm and maybe a wish for death. To say that hearing Oliver say those kinds of things hurt would be an understatement the size of Jupiter and beyond the infinite.

But if his thoughts had become that dark again, he sure as hell needed to get them out in the open, Len's comfort be damned.

Len stuck his free hand out into Oliver's field of vision, pinky out.

"I promise," he said. "No interruptions."

Oliver stared at his hand for a second before extending his own hand, locking their pinky fingers in agreement. He didn't let go right away; he stared at their connected hands, his grip tightening, just a little bit. His knuckles were cold. Len wasn't sure if it was from nervousness or the night air.

Then he let go. Stuffed his hands into his lap. Took a deep breath. Spoke.

"I've been thinking about… whether you regret settling for me or not."

Len blinked.

"...What?"

"It's just," Oliver clarified, "we jumped into this pretty quickly, didn't we? I mean, we'd only known each other for a few months when we started dating. And it was all new and exciting but now it's been a couple of years and…" He tilted his head side-to-side, fumbling over a few nonsense sounds. "I figured you might be… bored. I guess."

Something like worry or maybe panic fluttered in Len's stomach. What was he talking about? Len had never been bored, never _would _be bored with Oliver, and he figured Oliver knew that by now. Where was _this _coming from?

"Can I say something right quick?" he asked, though he really, _really _didn't want to. "Just a quick question."

Oliver nodded.

"Are _you _bored? With us? Our relationship?" The thought made the panic within him swell. He'd thought Oliver was happy, too. Had he missed something? Done something?

"No! Of course I'm not." Oliver faced him to make this objection, and he made it quickly and without hesitation, eye locked with Len's as he spoke. For a moment, it alleviated the flurry of uneasiness within him.

"No," he confirmed again, "I'm very happy. I always have been." He looked back down again, a half-smile pulling the corner of his lips. "My only regret is making you settle."

Where the panic was, something else took its place, not as cold but just as unpleasant. Not really meaning to, Len winced. 'Settle'. He didn't like that, not one bit. "Why do you keep using that word?"

"Len, let me finish."

Len apologized, bringing the hand on Oliver's back back to himself.

Oliver cleared his throat. "I say 'settle,'" he explained, "because you… I mean, you never had a lot of luck with love, right? I remember you telling me that. So at some point in your life, along comes this guy, and you like him, and then he likes you back. What else do you do? Just… just _not _jump on that opportunity?"

Wow, this _was _uncomfortable, and not just the realization that Oliver's episode was because of him. Len fought off another wince. Did Oliver really think _that _was why he'd wanted to date him so badly? Just because he was available?

"But here you are, still stuck with me after all this time. How many opportunities have you had to pass up to keep me appeased? Surely by now you're miserable, aren't you?"

That unpleasant feeling inflated further, sending Len into a state of disconcertion that made his vision hazy. This sounded entirely too much like that _"Oh, you're bi? Damn. Guess you'll get tired of me and leave me for a *insert opposite sex of speaker here* within a few months" _talk he'd received from at least three other people in the past.

...Oliver would never think that, would he? He'd known Len was bi well before they started dating. Did it bother him now, all of a sudden?

"If I was miserable with you," he cut in, trying his best to keep his tone soft and even, "why do you think I'd still be with you after two years?"

Oliver shrugged, a dismissive and almost infuriating gesture. "Because you care about me?"

"Yes, I _do _care about you!"

"And that's why." His half-smile died as he spoke, his voice filling with… spite? Was that spite or just frustration? as he spoke. "I don't doubt that you care about me. So of course you wouldn't tell me. You know splitting up would break my heart and you don't want to put me through that. You're too decent to look after your own wellbeing. If you had any sense, you'd dump me and move on. I'm sure you're aware of that by now, and I'm not sure if it's blind devotion or plain stupidity keeping you chained down."

Alarm bells went off in Len's head, warning him that he was taking this too personally, misreading this whole situation, but he grit his teeth and ignored them. Had Oliver lost faith in him? What kind of nonsense accusations were he spouting? And what had Len done to put them so fervently into his mind? "Oliver, listen—"

"No, _you _listen!"

Len flinched back.

Oliver had never shouted at him. Not like that.

He commanded Len's full attention, a fire blazing in his eye, his words spilling out with abandon.

"You're Kagamine Len!" he yelled into the night. "Everyone that doesn't want to _be _you wants to be _with _you! And you— you're famous, you're attractive, you're funny, you're kind — you could have anyone you want if you knew where to look, literally anyone. But you've got your blinders on because you're so afraid to hurt me, so instead of someone you could actually be happy with, you're stuck with— with some downbeat piece of shit who you have to look after like a child!"

The alarm bells shut off, but those words were just as piercing, slamming against Len's skull like shards of obsidian.

"And— and you've had to develop this whole new personality just to deal with me," Oliver went on, but now his voice quieted the more he said, and tears pooled in his eye, slowly extinguishing the flame that lay there. "Have you even noticed it? When I'm having a bad day you'll drop everything just to lock yourself up with me until I'm better and that's not something you'd normally do. You even _talk _differently around me. You're changing yourself just to keep me happy and that— that's not fair to you, Len.

"And I've been thinking all this while that you seem pretty content, but… but are you really happy? You could have someone that loves you just as much as I do, but they could be cute enough to show off on your arm or energetic enough to get into all kinds of trouble with you, but instead…" His voice cracked, and he sniffed, his outburst fizzling out just as quickly as it had come. "You could be so much happier. And your devotion to me is keeping you from that. _I'm _keeping you from that."

Agitation still smouldered deep within Len, but no longer was it directed at Oliver.

_That's not it. That's not it. That's not it. _A constant loop that filled the spaces in Oliver's words, one that Len wasn't given a chance to voice. Oliver told lie after lie after lie and he told them with such conviction and — he believed everything he was saying, didn't he? Believed it with his whole heart: not that Len was the problem, but that _he _was.

Indeed, his regrets, his agony, they had everything to do with Len. But not in the way he'd thought.

How long had these notions been swirling about his head?

"I love you."

The familiar phrase was weighed down with an unbearable sadness. Len felt frozen, unable even to reach out and wipe Oliver's tears as they finally fell.

"But I can't call my love selfless if I'm keeping you trapped." Oliver was no longer looking at him. He looked down into his lap, where his hands were clenched into fists, shaking with barely-repressed sorrow. "You deserve the world and more, and you could actually have it if you just toughen up and find someone better. B-be honest with me and with yourself, because this is your chance to free yourself. So if you want it, take it, because I don't know if I'll have the strength to offer it again."

And then the air was still, filled only with suppressed sobs and heavy breaths.

_That's not it, _Len wanted to say. _That's not it._

But… to some extent, it was.

He was right. From the day they'd met, Len watched how he behaved and spoke around Oliver, made sure his words and actions were gentle and kind. But that was when they'd met. He'd become more and more comfortable to be himself around Oliver in the months leading up to their relationship's start. Sure, he still spoke more gently with Oliver than he did with most other people, but that wasn't something he forced himself to do. It just… happened, completely naturally.

And staying by Oliver's side when he needed him — Len had never found that bothersome in the slightest. It was his job as Oliver's partner, and he felt honored to take care of Oliver when he needed him most. And Oliver was far from the only one who had bad days. He was content to cancel everything and stay with Len when _he _was at his worst.

Most of all, Oliver was right about himself in relation to Len. He wasn't at all the kind of person Len had ever seen himself dating, not until those feelings had crept up and taken reign over Len's heart. He really _had _seen himself dating someone more consistently upbeat and extroverted, someone who took on the world the same way he did. He'd been outright shocked when he fell in love. It wasn't at all what he'd expected.

But...

"You're right."

Oliver gasped, and Len wasn't sure if it was out of surprise or if he was about to completely lose control.

"I could have anyone I damn well please," he continued before Oliver had that chance. "All I'd have to do is look at them and they'd throw themselves at me and we'd ride off into the sunset. If that's all I wanted, I would've had it by now."

He'd decided he'd keep this short, to-the-point, but more thoughts came as he spoke and how could he not say them all? So he gave them a voice as they came, rambling and long-winded.

"That's the thing. _That's _why I was always single. It's not because no one ever liked me back. It's because I never wanted a fling or a pretty little decoration to show off on my arm. I wanted something long-term from the start. Someone I could trust no matter how bad or how hard things get. Someone that wouldn't get sick of me on my bad days and think I'm pathetic when I can't handle them. In hindsight, I probably needed someone that could maybe show me a new outlook on life, maybe knock some sense into me when I'm being too over-the-top.

"More than anything, I just wanted a friend. Someone I could spend my life with. Someone I'd always love, even when the excitement and newness was gone. And I— I prayed to every god that might listen that one day I'd find someone like that. I guess one of 'em listened, because then I met you. You're everything I've ever wanted and more. Being with you is the happiest I've been, ever.

"And, okay, I'm not gonna say some convoluted bullshit like 'Oh, I never knew happiness before I met you!' because I was happy, sure. But I never felt like this. It's not just happiness. It's ecstasy and pain and joy and fear and serenity and… and I feel so _alive _with you. That's worth so much more than just a little bit of happiness with no strings attached, because I know for a fact that's all I'd feel with anyone else. You're the only person who can make me feel all of these things and that's irreplaceable."

He realized now that Oliver was looking at him, so he looked back, looked straight into his tear-flooded gaze and held it there and left no room for doubt or question.

"You wanted me to be honest?" he said. "Here it is, in black and white: I never 'settled' for you. I _chose _you. I _love _you. And I will never, _ever _leave you."

He was shaking by the time he fell silent. The cold air made his eyes burn, but he continued looking straight ahead, determined to make sure Oliver knew the truth.

Oliver's tears fell faster, and for a moment Len wondered if he'd gone too far, said too much.

"I… I know."

Then Oliver finally, _finally _closed their distance, throwing himself against Len and collapsing in a whimpering, sobbing mess.

The adrenaline that came with voicing such raw emotions so plainly faded, and Len was shocked to realize that he'd started crying, too.

He quickly wiped his cheeks before holding onto Oliver, offering him comfort and warmth in the cold garden. Like a lost puzzle piece connected at last with its match, Len felt that, in spite of the chaos and the tears, all was right with the world again.

"I'm sorry," Oliver gasped. "I'm so sorry."

Len held him tighter, rocking him gently where they sat. "No, no, don't be sorry! It's okay!"

"No, it's not! I…" Oliver hiccupped, and it was almost enough to make Len smile. "I'm painting you as this terrible, bored, uncaring person and I'm saying all of these stupid and baseless things and—and…"

Len shushed him, cradling his head as he cried himself out.

He should have known. He really should have known by now. Prior to knowing Oliver, the most Len knew about depression came from the songs various producers gave him. Depressed people constantly moped around, he'd thought, lamenting their lot in life and desperately looking for a way out. And maybe that was some people's reality. But Oliver, by default, was quite the opposite. Once he overcame his timidity, he was a bright and cheerful and even excitable person, a person who loved company.

So Len had to learn his nuances, and he'd thought he knew them well enough before tonight. His depression manifested a lot like Len's anxiety disorder did. It went like this:

Even on medications, and even when life was going well, and even when the world was perfect, an inner voice that wasn't his own would burrow into his mind and whisper his deepest fears to him. It would take the most basic, the most mundane, the most innocent things, and it would twist them to support that fear. _You see? I told you. I told you. _That voice would grow louder and louder and louder until, eventually, its words became impossible to ignore, and its lies became truths.

That was where their disorders divided. At that point, Len would curl up in a dark corner while the world crashed around him — sometimes he screamed back, other times he just helplessly broke down and waited for it to pass in silence. But eventually it would subside, and then he'd be out of commission for several hours, and then he'd be, for the most part, perfectly fine.

Oliver's breaking point took longer to reach. He would go on about his life for days or weeks or months, all while his mind screamed at him every waking moment that he was worthless, he didn't deserve what he had, that everyone would be so much happier without him.

He was very good at hiding it.

And if Len wasn't careful, he'd remain blissfully ignorant to his turmoil.

Oliver's thoughts weren't baseless at all. They'd been truth to him. He'd never thought Len was uncaring, merely that _he _wasn't good enough for him, and such thoughts weren't his fault.

"It's not stupid. None of it is." He pulled back just enough to kiss Oliver's temple. "Thank you. I know all of that was hard to say. I'm really glad you told me what was wrong."

Now guilt weighed upon his shoulders, and his eyes stung again.

"And I'm sorry I got kinda upset with you and cut you off. I promised to hear you out."

Oliver shook his head. "You weren't the one screaming at the top of your lungs at one in the morning."

"Hey, it's alright." Len patted his back. "After all, you've made me scream at indecent hours before. Now we can call it even."

This was enough to make Oliver laugh, though he buried his face deeper into Len's shirt in embarrassment. Still, Len decided to call it a success.

Several minutes of quiet assurances later, Oliver's tears finally slowed to a stop, and he pulled away. Len couldn't help but grin. His face and eye were red, and he overall just looked like a complete mess, yet he looked much better than he had all night.

"Hey, Len?"

"Yeah?"

Oliver remained focused on Len's shirt, soaked and darkened with his tears. "...Can you kiss me?"

Len smiled, already brushing Oliver's hair away from his face. "I sure can. I'd even call myself an expert at it."

Oliver didn't laugh, not really, but he smiled his brightest smile of the night and tilted his head up, and Len kissed him, quietly and slowly.

Written across Oliver's face was exhaustion, but at the same time a sort of contented peace.

_"Thank you for putting up with me," _Oliver often told him once he came down from the worst of his episodes. _"It has to be tiring and frustrating."_

But Len felt only one thing looking into Oliver's face: something made up of many emotions, one that didn't include frustration at all.

"I love you," he said, and it felt just as sweet on his tongue as it did the first time he'd ever said it. "I know it can feel hard to believe some days, but please don't forget it. Okay?"

Oliver nodded, looking down once more. "I'll do my best."

"Good." Len pulled him in and placed a soft kiss to his forehead. "That's all I'm asking."

* * *

"If you're up for it, you wanna have a date tomorrow?"

Oliver mused the question over, handing Len the re-washed cups to dry off. He'd made another pot of tea to melt the chill from their bones once they came back inside — neither had realized just how cold it was outside until the much less frigid air of the house had greeted them — and they'd enjoyed their drinks in a silence more comfortable than the one they'd started the night with.

"Doing what?" he asked finally.

Len shrugged. "You pick. I'm down for anything."

Oliver spent a moment scrubbing a stubborn speck on the kettle, only responding once he handed it over to Len. "...I'd kind of like to go to the park. Sit on the benches, watch the foliage… maybe get some hot chocolate beforehand."

Actually, that sounded perfect. It was supposed to be even colder tomorrow (er… today, technically), perfect weather to merge fall and winter activities. And Len could hardly think of a better way to pass an afternoon than with Oliver at his side, rambling on about all the birds that were in migration and how thoughtful the mundane changing of seasons was.

"Hot chocolate in the park it is!" Len put the kettle back in its place and handed the towel to Oliver to dry his hands with. Everything once more in order, he gave him another quick kiss, then turned to lead them back to their room.

Oliver stopped him, wrapping his arms around his waist and pressing himself against his back.

"You meant that, right?" His voice was hushed, as though he was unsure of the answer he would receive. "That you won't leave me? No matter how insufferable I become?"

Whatever cold still clung to Len dissipated in that moment. If he could have his way, the sun would never rise; he'd remain right here, whispering words of promise and love for all of time.

But the sun would come up eventually. And when it did, he'd still be right where he wanted to be: at Oliver's side, always.

He took Oliver's left hand in his own, drawing it up and pressing his lips against his knuckles.

"I meant it," he said. "I'm yours forever."


	19. Moving In

The bed frame and headboard had at least been easy to get downstairs. Taking them apart had been the most challenging aspect, but once that was taken care of, each piece came down on its own, and all of it was easily reassembled inside of Oliver's bedroom.

The mattress was another story.

"_Mother of— __**God**__,_" Oliver gasped in his native tongue, all forty-five kilograms of himself too heavily exerted to bother being understood by anyone else. "_This wasn't— supposed to be— so foucking— __**difficult!**_" He accentuated the last word with one last push, backing it with as much force as he could muster.

It lurched forward, sending him tumbling to the floor.

"Oliver!" His name was called before he hit the hardwood, and a second later Len was kneeling beside him. "I'm so sorry! I got this huge burst of energy so I pulled as hard as I could at the same time you pushed and—"

Rolling onto his back, Oliver remained otherwise still as Len checked him over, gave his aching spine a few moments to relax.

How disappointing. He'd wanted to believe he'd made it move so far all on his own.

Len stuck his hand out, and Oliver took it, unwilling though he was to stand back up. The sooner they got this bastard downstairs, the sooner it would all be over.

The good news, at least, was that they'd finally managed to get it to the stairs. Once it was at the bottom, its final destination was only a few more shoves away. But even that made Oliver want to just sit down and take a nap. The miserable thing surely weighed more than that road roller the twins had sitting in a shed out back.

A hand on his far shoulder brought him back to his dismal situation. Len gave a comforting squeeze, smiling a smile that didn't quite reach his eyes.

"Just a little more," he promised. "And if we ever do this again, we'll make sure Mei-chan or Gakkun are home."

"I don't think even they could move the sodding thing so easily."

Pushing the mattress down the stairs was almost therapeutic. Once they'd laid it out flat, they gave it a few swift kicks (really, they could have just given a simple shove, but kicking the living daylights out of it felt so much better after all it had put them through), and down it went, its slide stopped by the wall of the second floor hallway.

Then there was the issue of getting it back up onto its side, so that they would be able to get it through the door. The mattress was wide enough that the bottom step still propped it up, and the fight it put up with both boys as they got beneath it and pushed wasn't too bad. From there, it only took five more heave-hos to get it to the door, two more to get it positioned in the open door frame, and two final efforts to get it inside.

It wobbled, then it collapsed onto its flat side, narrowly missing the dresser.

And putting the bed frame it still had to be lifted onto in perfect view once more.

No. That was quite enough.

Groaning, Oliver let his body crumple up and fall face-first onto the mattress. It bounced under his weight, then once he'd settled, it enveloped him in cushiony softness, more luxurious than the mattress he'd slept on since he'd come to Japan. Suddenly, all of that work seemed almost worth it.

The mattress shifted again, and when he looked, Len was lying beside him, also face-down.

"_Hu'bu'we tay'ga nah? _" His words were absorbed into the fabric, thick and cozy enough to sleep on without sheets.

"Pardon?"

"How 'bout we take a nap?" Len repeated, tilting his head to look at Oliver. His whole face was bright red, his spiked bangs plastered to his face. The collar of his shirt was stained dark with sweat, even though it was well below freezing outside.

In spite of how rough he appeared, Oliver was sure he himself looked a thousand times worse.

He smiled. Surely after a nice nap, a few more housemates would stream in, and they'd help lift the mattress onto its frame. Until then, he had no intention of moving. "You've read my mind."

Len stretched like a cat, arms extended in front of him, rump in the air, and then he slumped again. "Mind if I take my shirt off? I'm drenched."

_Yes please, _Oliver fought not to say. "You don't have to ask me," he said instead, mimicking Len's stretch before rolling onto his side. "This is your room too."

Behind him, Len sucked in a gasp.

"...It is, isn't it?" And Oliver didn't even need to see him to hear the smile in his voice, to know that his cool blue eyes were sparkling like brilliant stars. His happiness was so infectious, even if Oliver felt the reasoning was a bit redundant.

Oliver's room had also been Len's room in all but name for the past two months, really. The bottom dresser drawer had a few pairs of his pajamas, his hair gel and seven hairbrushes and ten combs took up half of the bathroom counter space, his guitar sat in the corner next to Oliver's writing desk.

And Oliver had grown quite accustomed to sharing a bed meant for one. Not that he'd ever much minded. Falling asleep and waking up pressed into a familiar warmth was quite soothing, even if the muscle cramps weren't.

Really, their arrangement wasn't changing too much. The bed was the biggest thing, both literally and figuratively. They could both stretch out to their hearts' content now. Aside from that, they just had to move Len's dresser in, which would be a cakewalk after their previous effort, and then…

And then maybe they could make a sign to hang on the door, one like the girls hung on theirs. _Oliver and Len's Room, _on a cute little board in blue and gold _kana,_ surrounded by tiny star stickers and whatever else Len wanted.

The thought made Oliver's stomach flutter, made his cheeks go red with contented excitement.

Yes. It really _was_ Len's room now. Once the dust settled, that room across the hall would be obsolete, empty, wonderfully useless, once and for all.

Maybe nothing much was going to change. But they were taking those last few steps to make it all official, and... and it was quite nice.

His face burned hotter when Len pressed into his back, wrapped his arms around his midsection. He had, indeed, taken off his shirt.

_God, give me strength._

Len nuzzled his nose into Oliver's neck, his breath tickling. Oliver giggled, and he felt Len's lips curl against his skin.

"Sleep tight, babe," Len whispered, already sounding half-asleep himself. He was still hot from exertion, and without his shirt to absorb that heat…

Oliver bit his lip. Great. Now he didn't feel tired at all, and the ache in his body had nothing to do with the efforts to get the mattress downstairs.

_Never mind it, never mind it. _He took a deep breath and forced himself to clear his head, to focus on the rise and fall of Len's chest against his back. His breath against his neck was cool and steady and calmed him enough to make him forget about his little brush with indecency.

There'd be time to sort those thoughts out later. First they had to rest, then get the bed put together, then move the dresser in, then make a cute little sign for the door…

The mere thought of all that work exhausted Oliver, and he welcomed it, closing his eye and snuggling deeper into Len's arms. Len pulled him closer reflectively, and Oliver grinned, resting a hand over one of Len's.

...Come to think of it, if they were always going to sleep like this, without so much as an inch of space between them, what was the point in dragging a bigger bed downstairs?

Oliver drifted off before his mind could run too far with that thought.


	20. The New Guy

"So what do you think of the new guy?"

"Honestly? I feel really bad for him."

"Right? Like, you just wanna hug him and tell him everything's gonna be okay."

Wasn't that the truth. Poor Oliver was in over his head, it seemed; he'd responded to every introduction with a _"Hajimemashite" _that was almost quiet enough to hide his thick accent, tied it off with an almost inaudible _"Yoroshiku onegaishimasu" _, responded to every other question and inquiry with stiff _"Hai, hai" _s and _"Iie, iie" _s.

When he wasn't answering questions, he pulled his jacket up to his ears and avoided looking at anyone at all costs. He'd never once relaxed, right to the moment Luka had led him away from the convergence in the living room and upstairs to his room.

Len hadn't even gotten a good look at his face, or even his eyes.

Er… eye.

"_Don't mention his face," _Luka had warned all of them multiple times prior to his arrival. _"Yes, he covers half of it. No, he won't say why. He's very insecure about it. Bring it up around him and I'll sic Meiko on you."_

Len would be lying if he said he wasn't curious, but he wasn't _that _curious.

"You wouldn't know he's been learning Japanese all this time, either," Rin continued, plucking a makeshift tune on Len's acoustic. "I got the feeling he didn't really know what was going on."

"I did too." Len stretched and propped his feet up on Rin's pillow. He got it, he really did; when he'd gotten off the plane in the United States for the first time, every last English lesson he'd taken had fled him, and he probably would have gotten lost and starved to death in the streets of Los Angeles were it not for Luka.

The Dunning-Kruger effect in full swing. It all seems so easy when you're surrounded by people who don't know any better than you do.

And he only had to deal with it once a year on average. This Oliver guy was stuck with it for good, assuming he really did stay permanently. He had no choice but to acclimate. There was no "going home". This _was _his home now.

How scary. How sad.

At least he — and all of them, to that extent — had time to prepare. New house members came into the Kyokotta household with, on average, a week's advance notice. They were always fresh from the pod, a month old, if that, and no one knew what to expect. With the new guy, there'd been almost two months of prep, most of which hadn't involved anyone other than Luka, who, in turn, touched base with everyone else.

That said, she'd never delved too intimately into specifics. About Oliver, Len only knew this much:

1\. He had no second name, as was traditional for English-based Vocaloids. (What did he use to fill out online applications? order forms? stuff like that?)

2\. Production-wise, he was the youngest, having just turned four a few weeks earlier. His set age was… seventeen? Luka had said seventeen, but from what little Len had glimpsed, he looked younger.

3\. He was shy and depressed, yet friendly and even cheerful in the right conditions. (That depression was probably clinical, Luka had confessed, and she intended to get him seen and on an antidepressant ASAP. Selfishly, perhaps, that made Len a bit excited — he was no stranger to disorders and medications, so maybe he'd get to help the new guy get into the swing of things.)

4\. He had a pet bird, who'd be arriving in a few weeks. ("Yeah, it's gonna take him a while to fly all the way here with those little wings!" Kaito had attempted. This earned him a sharp kick from Meiko.)

5\. Don't mention his face.

...It had been strange, preparing for a new housemate. The house structure had been the same for half a decade. And yet, now that he was here...

Rin strummed a dramatic chord, quickly and aggressively, snapping Len out of his musings.

"Hey," he warned, snapping back up into sitting position, "if you break one of my strings—"

"I'm thinking the new guy needs some friends," Rin cut him off. "We oughta invite him to go with us tomorrow. Break the ice a little bit."

Content that his guitar was safe (for now), Len settled down again, thinking her proposition over. His immediate thought was to reject it. Tomorrow, they had plans to catch a movie, maybe a mindless action film or a melodrama that took itself far too seriously. That involved going outside, into public, around lots of people, socializing.

Tonight's low-pressure gathering had nearly sent Oliver into catatonia. Len had the feeling he'd see his face and slam the door in it in fear, if he opened his door at all.

Still, Luka said he was cheerful "in the right conditions", right? Being alone on the other side of the world was hardly ideal. So if he at least knew he was welcome, no matter how out-of-place he felt… maybe that would help him feel more at home.

"Yeah," he agreed. "But we'll have to be careful in the approach. We don't wanna stress him out."

Rin nodded. "I think he'd feel a lot less pressured if the invite was in English, that way he's not panicking and trying to translate. At the very least, it'd be kind of a solidarity-type thing. If that made any sense."

Now _that _Len couldn't argue with.

"Great!" Rin slapped her palm over the guitar strings. "So go catch him before he goes to bed and lemme know what he says."

...Surely he'd heard that wrong.

"Wait, what?"

Rin ignored him in favor of starting up on another tune.

No. no no no no no she was _not _about to make him look like a fool.

"Rin, you know where my English skills are! He's not gonna understand a word I'm saying!"

"But you're less likely to scare him off." Rin peeked up through her eyelashes, batting them as cutely as she could. "And Rin-nee-sama's comfortable and doesn't wanna get up. Do it for your nee-sama, Len."

Len rolled his eyes. "You've got no right calling yourself that, you know."

"I _am _older than you."

"By fourteen-thousandths of a millisecond."

Rin countered by sticking her tongue out.

He couldn't help but smirk. In one respect, at least, she was right. She could be cute and sweet for the cameras or for the stage, but her true self was much more… abrasive. Oliver would be terrified of her.

The poor guy didn't need to feel more scared than he already did.

Len got to his feet and stretched his legs. It was already dark, and Oliver was probably still a little jet-lagged, so it wouldn't be a surprise if he was asleep. Still, best to catch him now, if possible. He'd hate to spring it on him at the last minute.

* * *

_Knock, knock, knock._

No response.

It was already 20:30ish. After a nineteen-hour flight and a day of relative excitement, Oliver was probably out cold. That was always the first thing Len wanted to do after long flights: faceplant into the nearest bed and crash.

Oh well. It might be for the best. Another invitation when he was still so overwhelmed would surely—

But then the doorknob rattled. The door cracked open. Timidly, an eye peeked out at him.

Welp. No backing out of this now. Len put on his brightest smile — toned it back a little, just in case — and nodded in greeting as the door opened the rest of the way.

Oliver had just gotten out of the shower, from the looks of it. He wore oversized pajamas, his hair was slicked down and shiny, and if Len wasn't mistaken, he'd changed the bandages covering his face. Earlier, there had been what looked like a long strip, maybe an inch wide, that wrapped around his head multiple times to cover his eye and cheek. What he wore now was more like a solid piece of soft elastic fabric.

_**Don't mention his face.**_

Lest he give the wrong impression before even saying anything, Len repeated the warning in a mental mantra and focused his attention on the uncovered eye.

It was… a really, really pretty golden color, like fresh honey.

"Good evening," Oliver greeted. "Um… is everything alright?" He didn't sound suspicious or put-off, mercifully, but his speech was stilted, like he wasn't really sure what he was saying.

Well, at least they had that much in common.

Len cleared his throat.

"_Yes, yes,_" he started out in as neutral an accent as he could manage, "_I am well._"

With the formalities out of the way, he went into the explanation — he and his sister were going to the movies the following day, and they wanted Oliver to come with them. Dammit, he'd forgotten a "the". Had he? Was one supposed to go there? Maybe he should have just sent a text. Did Oliver have a phone? Did he have an international or at least Japanese phone plan yet? Nevermind that mess, he should have just asked Luka to pass the invitation along. Dang it, why hadn't he thought of that?

By the time he finished — which, really, he hadn't even said much — Oliver looked just as stupefied as he felt.

Screw it. He wasn't cut out for this.

But before he could excuse himself and fetch Luka to act as translator, Oliver spoke, and the syllables were just barely familiar enough to follow. Len caught two words — "I" and "want". At least that _sounded _like "want". The vowel was rounded, like "wont", or was that "won't", as in "will not"?

He blinked, fully and painfully aware of how long he was taking to respond.

_Shoulda just asked Luka._

Oliver's cheeks flushed pink suddenly, and he glanced down, staring hard at Len's shirt. "Thank you," he said finally in his stilted Japanese, "but… I… busy. Am."

_Busy sleeping, no doubt. _Len would have done the same without question.

With each passing second, Oliver shrunk further back, his eye darting around so that he wouldn't have to look at Len; his shyness and desire to be alone and lay down were palpable, even without words. Best not to torture him any longer. Nodding in farewell, Len left his invitation open, just in case Oliver changed his mind, and bid him a good night.

He didn't expect Oliver to change his mind, not really. But he'd never dealt with someone so demure before. The more forthright he was in his hospitality, the better.

He made a stop downstairs before reporting back to Rin, snatching up an orange soda for both of them and feeling quite proud of himself. He felt something else, too, something nagging and significantly less pleasant, but he brushed it off as dehydration and swapped his soda for a glass of water.

* * *

That feeling came back the next day, a gnawing in his gut that felt almost like hunger pains. Surely that wasn't it. He'd had two bananas and a glass of strawberry milk for breakfast, just like always.

It wasn't intense, per say, but he didn't like it. He considered calling his and Rin's plans off and staying home. But that wouldn't be fair to Rin. With how busy Miku had been as of late, she was in dire need of some _futagonojikan. _And then what if Oliver decided he wanted to join them after all, only to have the rug pulled out from under him?

_He won't go, Len. It's nearly noon and he's still in bed._

The thought should have put him at ease, but it just made the gnawing feeling worse. God, he was already getting sick of it.

He managed to power through his self-pity and uphold his promise to Rin. He was at the vestibule, pulling on his shoes, when he heard a scuffle; a gasp from Rin, and stuttering from a voice he still wasn't familiar with.

"Len, check it out! The new guy's going after aaaaaaall!"

Rin rounded the corner and rushed down the hall, the aforementioned new guy being dragged by the wrist behind her.

The gnawing feeling gave way to horror. The scene before him was the exact reason he'd been sent to talk to Oliver instead of Rin.

Just as he was about to chew Rin out, reprimand her for her careless treatment of the new guy, she reached him and yanked Oliver into view and he… didn't look nearly as terrified as Len had anticipated. Startled, certainly. Free from Rin's grasp, he pulled his hands back to him, holding them in loose fists over his stomach. But he looked right up at Len, eye wide and clear, making no attempt to excuse himself and back out.

...Len had made him feel welcomed. So welcomed that he was willing to reach out in return, his own inhibitions be damned.

Looking back into that honey-golden eye, his stomach settled, and he felt light all over. The slightest early-January breeze would surely blow him away.

His eye had such a lovely color. And his face looked so unsure, yet so gentle, full of an emotion Len couldn't quite pinpoint. And his hair was messy and puffy from sleeping with it wet, the color of newly-baled hay resting beneath the sun. He was… he was _cute._

"Good to see you, Oliver!" Spurred on by his sudden good mood, Len garnished his greeting with an English "_Are you ready? _"

Oliver still kept his hands drawn in, still didn't say a word, still looked uncertain. But he finally nodded, ducking his chin against his chest.

Len smiled. He couldn't _stop _smiling. He really didn't know why. But he much preferred this feeling to the gnawing, so he didn't question it.

Rin took the lead, guiding the trio down familiar streets while reading off a list of movies showing that day. Oliver strayed behind, his gaze trained on his feet, carefully stepping over stray ants and cracks in the pavement. So he wouldn't be on his own, Len hung back as well; so he wouldn't feel crowded, he kept a meter or so between them.

Oliver only looked up once the whole walk there. He looked up, met Len's eye, smiled softly, and look right back down.

That was the first time Len had seen him smile.

On January 4th, at half-past noon, Kagamine Len finally figured it out: why he'd been so affected by this new guy's absence, why he'd been so elated to see him, why he smiled uncontrollably and walked with a spring in his step and stuck as close by Oliver's side as he was permitted.

_I want to protect him._


	21. Life's a Beach

Oliver had never much cared for the summertime. It was hot and sticky and his pale skin burned if he so much as set foot outside without copious amounts of sunscreen. But even he couldn't resist the allure of a lovely, sandy beach. The few beaches he'd visited in his home country had more rocks than sand, certainly not the kind of place where one could lay out a towel and soak in some sun.

Still, he wasn't about to risk burning to a crisp. By the time everyone else was in their swimsuits and doing their own thing, he was still beneath a massive cloth umbrella, rubbing a third layer of sunscreen into his legs while Len covered his back and shoulders.

"Need some more?" Len asked, wiping the excess of the latest layer onto Oliver's arms (which were already slathered to the point of discoloration). Oliver rejected the offer, pumping one last handful of sunscreen into his palm and rubbing it into the exposed half of his face (which made Layer 5 for that part of his body).

That would do, he decided. He'd probably still suffer a sunburn, but nothing some cold aloe couldn't handle.

He passed the bottle over his shoulder so Len could store it in his bag. "Thank you, love."

"No problem." Whatever sunscreen still stuck to his palms, Len wiped it onto his knees. "Lemme know if you need me to give anything else a thorough rubdown."

"_Len._"

"Relax! It's not like anyone heard that."

"I heard it," Gumi chimed, still in the process of inflating several floaties a few towels over. "He's saying he wants to touch your butt. You should let him touch your butt, Ollie-Ollie."

Oliver threw a scowl Len's way, and Len just blushed and shrugged in silent apology.

Not that Oliver could be flustered for long. It was too beautiful out, and this vacation wouldn't last forever. He could save the grudges for home.

He'd never actually heard of Otaru prior to the vacation planning. It wasn't much further out than Sapporo, and it was such a lovely hidden gem; he couldn't wait to explore its craft houses and take in its spectacular architecture and bask in the brilliant lights of the canal at night. There was even a church, a real rarity for Japan, and Len had eagerly booked a tour for the two of them to be held after Sunday Mass, which he wanted to attend for Oliver's sake.

(Oliver, being Anglican, technically wasn't permitted to partake in a Catholic Mass. But Len seemed so proud of himself, and they could always just listen in on the sermon, so he couldn't find it in his heart to turn the offer down.)

But that was all for the near future. The household had semi-collectively demanded a beach day first and foremost, and, with the billions of yen they sat atop of, they were able to privately rent a vast expanse of shore. Meiko was cursing the grill she'd brought along, unable to light a fire in it, while Luka calmly Googled potential answers on her phone; Rin and Miku were already knee-deep in the water, laughing as they splashed each other; Gakupo had perched himself on a nearby rock like a lizard to meditate, and Kaito was installing a volleyball net in the sand, doing his best to drive the stakes in deeply enough so that it wouldn't collapse under its own weight.

Actually, it wasn't even too hot out today. Len helped Oliver to his feet and led him out from under the umbrella, and the sun against his newly-protected skin felt pleasantly warm, like a hug.

"Onii-chan," Len called, giving Oliver's hand a quick squeeze before going his own way, "need some help?"

Kaito waved him over, and Oliver just stood there for a moment, watching them stabilize the posts and the net. He wanted to help, but his arms were like sticks. He'd be useless.

Something nailed him in the back of the head, something lightweight but unexpected enough to throw him off-balance. Gumi was there when he turned around, an inner tube fashioned to look like a panda settled around her waist; she'd thrown a similar one at Oliver, one that looked like a duck, and she was smiling expectantly.

"Floatie race!" she explained as he picked up the tube and slid it on. "Last one to the deep end has to clean up J-kun crap when we get home!"

Oliver wasn't sure what baffled him more: the suggestion that anyone other than him would clean up after James (he was the one who insisted he retain free reign of the house while they were gone, after all), or the suggestion that the ocean _had_ a deep end.

Gumi took off without so much as a countdown, making Oliver's defeat inevitable, but he still chased after her, laughing all the while.

Time felt suspended in place, even as the hours went by. Not wanting to get his bandages wet, Oliver was elected officiate for a number of water-based contests, from short-distance swim races (which Gakupo won) to wet-hair-flip contests (which Miku won by a landslide) to breath-holding challenges (which Oliver knew Len would win before they even began). Meiko finally got the grill working, and the nine gathered beneath the umbrellas to help themselves to barbecue and grilled vegetables and condensation-coated cans of flavored sodas.

The sun was beginning its journey to the opposite horizon when Oliver woke from his post-lunch nap, but it was no less bright, which meant it was probably around 14:00 or 15:00. Miku was still dozing beneath the rays a few meters away, and Gakupo was back on his rock. The remaining six were in the midst of a game of volleyball, the twins and Meiko on one side, Kaito, Gumi, and Luka on the other.

...Even though he was beneath an umbrella, Oliver's skin felt a little _too_ warm. Great. The sunburn was setting in.

Might as well make it worth it.

He slapped on a fresh layer of sunscreen and stretched as he stood, trodding over the sand to the shoreline. He'd spend some time wading in the water, maybe looking for shells, until the game was over and another activity, one that he could actually partake in, began.

"Oliver!"

That was Gumi, and Gumi never used his actual name. He looked over as quickly as he could.

He recognized that the object flying towards him was a volleyball, and that was all he had time to process before the lights went out.

* * *

_"...back! Get back, stop crowding him! Give him some space!"_

That voice, though clouded and far away, was instantly familiar, and it lifted Oliver slowly from the void of nothingness, his brain connecting the dots though his body remained motionless. That was Len's voice he'd heard, and the voices surrounding him quieted to a panicked murmur at his command, interjected by a constant mantra of _"Oliver! Oh shit, Oliver, I'm so sorry!"_

His mouth was dry. When he tried to wet his lips, he figured out why: it was full of sand. Probably because he'd collapsed face-first onto the beach. He groaned, trying to lift his head enough to spit it out, but he was met with bright light and a pain more intense than he'd experienced since…

"Oliver," Len said, and though his voice was quieter, it sounded much closer. That was probably the source of the hand on his back as well. "Ollie-kun, are you okay?"

With some difficulty, Oliver was able to prop himself up on his elbows, and instantly his hands went to his bad eye. A sharp pain, like knives being dragged over his skin and a meat tenderizer being thwacked over the eye itself, exploded beneath his fingers, and he hissed sharply.

"Here, here," he heard Luka say, and a slender pair of arms supported him, helped by the pair already closest to him. Once she and Len had gotten him sitting up (not without some trouble, as Oliver couldn't stop clutching his face long enough to help them), a still-cold soda was passed to him. He took it gratefully and pressed it gently against his eye. Ah. That was much better.

The cold helped numb the pain, reduce it to an aching throb, and it also helped him come fully back to his senses. The right side of his face barely even stung. He'd been hit squarely in his left eye. Of all places…

"Whoever spiked that ball," he managed, smiling ruefully, "you have impeccable aim."

Gumi groaned loudly, outing herself as the offender, and Oliver couldn't help but laugh. Seeing him well enough to laugh made the dark faces around him brighten as well, which also made him feel better.

Gumi shoved past Kaito and knelt in front of Oliver, presenting him with the accidental weapon, no worse for the wear after its collision with his face. "C'mon, Ollie-Ollie." She shoved the ball into his lap and then stood up, offering a hand to him. "Your turn. Hit me in the face as hard as you can. Better yet—" Once Oliver was upright (and the ball fell uselessly to the ground again), she puffed out her chest, gesturing dramatically to her breasts. "Spike it right into my tits. Aim it right and it'll still hit my face too."

"Wait!" Rin shouted, already backing away from the assembly. "I'll get my phone and some snacks! I don't wanna miss this!"

"Please don't." Luka, assisting Len in helping a still-mildly-concussed Oliver establish his balance, sighed. "She'll complain about the pain for a week straight and make me spoil her until she's 'healed'."

"All the more reason to do it, right?"

More laughter joined Oliver this time, the gathered household finally able to relax. The soda pressed to his eye had started going warm, and the stinging pain was already returning, but other than that, Oliver didn't feel just terrible anymore. He smiled as brightly as he could to assure everyone that he was alright, they could get back to what they were doing.

...Len was still oddly quiet. He hadn't spoken since just after Oliver regained consciousness. If not for the cautious hand on his shoulder, Oliver would have forgotten he was there. The poor thing. He was still worried sick, wasn't he?

But he really did feel better. A replacement soda and maybe some ibuprofen and some more rest, and he'd be right as rain once more.

"Ah, love," he said, facing Len and lowering the can to hand it over, "would you mind getting me another soda? One more round of a cold compress and I think I'll… be…"

Well that was odd. He'd hoped his words and his confident disposition would put Len at ease. Instead, Len's face twisted, a look like— like horror spreading across it, growing darker with each passing second.

"...W-what is it?" he asked, turning back to face the other seven, as though they might have the answer.

They gasped. All seven of them. In perfect unison, no less.

Most of them just looked shocked, but Miku looked like she was about to pass out, and the horror that flashed across Gumi's countenance easily matched Len's.

Well that certainly wasn't a good sign.

Len placed his other hand on Oliver's other shoulder and pushed him forward suddenly, past their gawking household, wordlessly guiding him to one of the concrete huts away from the shoreline.

"Anyone have a sledgehammer?" He heard Gumi say as he was led away, and her voice was pitched with thick guilt. "I don't think a volleyball's gonna cut it."

That _really_ wasn't a good sign.

"Len," he tried, tripping over his feet as Len hurried him along, "Len, what's going on? What's wrong? Why aren't you _telling me_ what's _wrong_?"

Len still didn't answer.

He opened the door of the unisex bathroom and ushered Oliver inside. The bathroom was little more than an open room with a single _washiki_, sink, and mirror. Before Len could follow him in, Oliver rushed to the mirror, determined to see just what had everyone so mortified.

He got his answer the moment he saw his reflection.

_Oh no._

"There's an ER ten minutes away," Len began as Oliver untied and unwound his bandages. "If it's too big a risk to wait that long, I'll run out and have Mei-chan call 119 and we can get you seen in half that time. Until then, we just need to stop the bleeding, so for now that's…"

Oliver tuned him out, as if ignoring his words could make that course of action less necessary. Draping his bloodied bandages over the sink faucet, he leaned in close to his reflection, assessing the situation as well as he could beneath the flickering fluorescents.

A nasty purple bruise was already forming around his eye, which was the source of the bleeding. Bright red seeped out from around the sutures holding his eyelids together and stained his cheek like bastardized tears— but it didn't seep out _too_ quickly, and it wasn't _too_ bright, so maybe that was a good sign.

He got as close as he could while still able to see, and, gritting his teeth against the pain, he gently tugged the skin above and below the eye.

"Ollie-kun! Ollie-kun, don't do that!"

The blood didn't flow any quicker, and the sutures didn't budge in the slightest, no matter how many test tugs Oliver gave.

He released a breath he hadn't realized he'd been holding.

"This won't need medical attention," he explained. Still, he watched his own face a moment longer, gesturing for Len to get him a paper towel. "If the sutures had come loose, that would have been a much bigger issue, but in this case all will be well once it stops bleeding. It'll just be sore for a bit is all."

The paper towel was passed to him, and he blotted it over his eye, catching a few drops before they fell. Without the bandages putting pressure on his face, blood fell more freely, but a few more minutes of compression would surely take care of it. Yes, this could have been much worse.

Len was watching in silence again. Oliver could feel his eyes against his back as he wadded the towel into a ball and ran it under some cold water.

"Ollie-kun…"

Oliver shut the faucet off and pressed some of the excess water out of the towel, shaking his hand off as he faced Len.

The terror on his face had melted. Now that he was seeing the injury in full detail, he just looked deeply worried.

Right. Len had seen his full face, but he'd never seen it like this.

"It's okay," Oliver promised, reaching up with his free hand to brush Len's bangs back. His hair was dry, but stiff from the salt water it had taken in. "This has happened enough that I know to take it seriously. If it was any worse, I wouldn't hesitate to take this to the hospital."

Len blinked, like Oliver's words startled him.

"How often do you get hit in the face with a volleyball?" He asked, returning the gesture and brushing Oliver's hair from his face. Oliver could feel another drop of blood running down his cheek; before he could address it, Len coaxed the wet paper towel from his hand, swiping it over his cheek, his touch feather-light.

Oliver closed his good eye while Len worked, savoring the glide of cool, fibrous fabric on his bruised skin. "Not that, in particular. But for the first year or two after I was created, the stitches came loose constantly. I bled pretty much nonstop for the first month."

The pain had also been comparable, a constant and agonizing presence, and he'd dealt with it largely on his own. But Oliver elected to omit that detail.

A few more short swipes over his face, and then Len pressed the towel back to his eye. Oliver fought not to wince. Len was being so gentle, gentler than usual, and he didn't want to discourage him.

After another moment of silence, Len said, "I'm sorry."

"Don't be."

"I mean, about… y'know, the beginning. It… sounds like it was miserable."

Oliver opened his eye. Len's face had softened, and now he looked almost sad. It wasn't hard to imagine that he'd filled in the blanks, that he was thinking about Oliver bleeding and crying and unable to turn to anyone or anything for relief.

His bangs were back in his eyes. Oliver brushed them away again, smiling softly. "It's all in the past."

Len smiled back in silent agreement.

That silence hung between them another minute or two, and then Len removed the compress, looking him over.

"There. That should do it." He stepped past Oliver to dispose of the blood-soaked paper towel. "We'll get you another soda to put on your eye just to be safe, then when we get back to the hotel we can get a rag and some medicine and maybe some ointment to help with the swelling and the bruising."

Tentatively, Oliver felt at his face, turning back to the mirror. The pain wasn't as bad. The nerves beneath his touch still stung, but when left alone, it just ached more than anything. And already he looked so much better. The bruise was darkening still, and his eye was starting to swell, just a bit, but he didn't look quite as big a mess.

Len appeared in behind him in the mirror, smiling cautiously. "Not bad."

Oliver chuckled. He wanted to crack a joke, maybe something at Len's expense — _"What, no waxing lyrical about how lovely I look even when I'm all banged up?"_ — but Len had been through enough already. The heckling could wait until tonight.

Instead, he turned to face Len again, standing to his toes to kiss his forehead. "Good as new," he corrected. "Thanks to you."

That was enough to relax Len. He hugged Oliver, pulling back to trace a thumb below his cheek.

"...You're still beautiful," he said. "Even like this."

Well, there went Oliver's chance to harass. No matter. He happily traded the opportunity for a kiss or three.

The blood on his bandages had dried, but he could always wear his nighttime bandage for the rest of the week, or at least until he could find a replacement. For now, he positioned it so that most of the stains were hidden, and Len helped him tie it back into place.

The sun was still shining. Beyond the concrete walls, the sand was still sandy and the ocean waves called his name. Now that he was all patched up, Oliver was going to take advantage of that and thoroughly enjoy the rest of his day.

He'd just need to make sure he didn't get anywhere near another game of volleyball.

Sharing a smile with Len, he took his hand and opened the door.

Gumi was standing just outside.

She'd found that sledgehammer she had wanted.

"Hit me. As hard as you can. In the face."

"Gumi no."


	22. And it Feels So Good

The noise and chaos of New Chitose faded into a hum, drowned out by the rush of blood in Len's ears, the pounding of his feet against the ground.

Never mind the flashing terminal signs and the arbitrary destinations they displayed in bold, bright colors. He only had one destination in mind. Never mind the flashing signs in the open storefronts, trying without success to lure him in with the promise of material possessions. There was only one thing he wanted. Never mind the displeased travelers he kept bumping into and their angry shouts and curses. He only cared about one person.

But where was he? Where _was_ he? Where _was he?_

Just when all seemed hopeless, just when the burning in Len's lungs was becoming too much to bear, he spotted them, somewhere in the tangle of the airport: a tall man with purple hair and an average-sized girl with green hair, and between them—

"Oliver!" The name left his throat in a shout, if not a scream, and the moment Oliver saw him, he started running, too.

They collided hard, hard enough to nearly knock them both over (and to hurt, too). Len didn't care. He pulled Oliver against him and Oliver did the same and suddenly nothing else mattered. The whole airport might as well have been empty.

"Oliver," he said again, this time in a whisper. He couldn't say much of anything else. His throat felt raw, and even if he could say more, what was there to say? What did he need to convey that couldn't be better said through his actions?

Oliver dug his fingers into the back of Len's shirt, burying his face into his shoulder. "Welcome home," he whispered back, and his quiet voice washed over Len and made him feel secure, happy, as if he'd finally found his place in the world.

He _was_ home. After all this time, he was home, in Oliver's arms, where he belonged.

It was so good to be home.

* * *

"Hey, asshole!" A very displeased Rin threw her whole weight forward again, and again, each jolt just barely moving the two suitcases she lugged behind her. "If you're gonna run off and leave me to carry your shit for you, could you at least not pack your entire fucking wardrobe and a cinder block?!"

Either Len was so lost in whatever he and Oliver were whispering to each other that he didn't hear, or he was intentionally ignoring her. Both thoughts infuriated her.

"You gay-ass mother_fuckers!_ " Unable to do much else, she kept lunging forward, eager to reach them and forcefully hand Len's baggage back over. "It's been three!" Lunge. "Fucking!" Lunge. "_Days!_" Lunge. "That's not even half of a _week!_ So stop acting like war-torn lovers that have been separated for forty years and _help me!_"

She got the help she was after, but it didn't come from Len.

Gakupo patted her back, taking the handle of Len's ridiculously heavy suitcase. "We all have our moments, Rin-dono," he said, though amusement was thick in his tone as he strolled on ahead. "Let them have theirs."

Rin just growled, huffing past the lovers and following behind Gakupo and a much-less-subtly amused Gumi (she sounded on the brink of hyperventilation she was laughing so hard). The sooner they could get to the food court and she could eat her frustrations away, the better.

Neither Len nor Oliver noticed them leaving.


End file.
